Young Olympian of Justice
by Bright Anarchy
Summary: When the Demi-gods take it upon themselves to rescue a member of the team against his will, they learn the meaning of the words friends in high places. Artemis wishes she had another name. Conner learns there is such a thing as too much family. Wally is determined that it's all good, all of it. Megan wonders if Wonder Woman can bake cookies. Batman is not happy.
1. ADHD

_This story might be a little slow being published I'm struggling with the Rick Riordan world. My son wants first priority put on this story. Review please. I need the help on this one. Suggestions, inspirations I need all of it. A few chapters have been written but my story arc ideas are very incomplete._

Black Canary was in lecture mode. "Bodyguards are assigned when a high profile target has no choice but to put themselves in a position of risk in order to carry out a task. All it takes is one moment of inattention to lead to failure. The human body is very susceptible to damage. Don't underestimate the difficulty of the role." The team dutifully watched the footage of the JFK assassination then spent about a half hour analyzing it before moving on.

"In Robin's latest evaluation it was determined that he can hack computers, defuse bombs, and pick locks approximately twice as fast if he is hyper-focused on the task," Black Canary explained.

Robin shifted uncomfortably.

Kid Flash asked, "What do you mean hyper-focused?" Kid Flash was currently poking Robin playfully to try and get the intense look off Rob's face. Kid Flash was hardly focused at all.

Rob grinned a bit and grabbed KF's arm twisting it around his back and putting the larger boy in an arm lock then smirking before letting him go. "Exactly what it sounds like KF. I can at times focus on a task to the exclusion of all else, including my personal safety. My attention is normally divided but special conditions can sort of lock my brain on a single task. It's actually common in people with ADHD. My brain's just wired that way."

"I don't really like the sound of him focusing on something to the exclusion of his personal safety," commented Kaldur. "Would you two stop horsing around and pay attention!"

"I sometimes end up in that mindset when the time's running out and I'm defusing a bomb that's too big to run away from," commented Robin. "Batman's called me on it a few times. He'll be trying to tell me something and I won't be able to register what he's talking about."

"I can see why you might want to focus on something like a really big bomb," admitted Artemis.

"The point is," continued Black Canary. "Robin has a talent that is a huge potential asset but it comes ..."

"It comes with it's own Kryptonite," Conner finished. "He'd be defenceless. If we need his talents on a tight deadline we..."

"We have to work as a team to overcome the Kryptonite. We would have to guard him and Robin would need to trust that he was safe," finished Kaldur.

"And that folks is what we'll be working on today. Robin you will be spending some time working bodyguard duty too but for the most part you'll be hacking under pressure and attempting to achieve hyper-focus."

It was more difficult that it sounded. They practised with paint guns in addition to hand to hand combat. Robin was put in a white jumpsuit and each drop of paint was logged as a fail. Audio distractions were broadcast. Artemis had little success because she was too dependant on ranged attacks. Miss Martian was usually too distracted trying to maintain the link. Kaldur could not be an effective guard and co-ordinate a mission at the same time. It just did not work. Kid Flash could do it fairly well but Superboy was by far the best at the job. He didn't tend to distract Robin with chatter. He had an inherent economy of motion and the fact that he could stand between Robin and a threat as a bulletproof shield made him perfect for the job.

The first time Rob was hit he acted out a huge melodramatic death scene. Artemis, who had let him get hit, snorted with laughter then kicked him.

On Miss Martian's first failure, KF Zipped over and sobbed in ridiculous pantomime then hummed the 'Death March' by Chopin while carrying Rob over to the trash can to dump his 'dead' body in it. Rob flipped down before he actually got dumped in the trash.

On Kaldur's third failure Robin commented that if Kaldur kept letting him get paint bombed, whoever did the laundry, really was going to kill him. Kaldur who had been getting quite annoyed at all the silliness decided to help Robin with that little problem and Robin ended up drenched courtesy of a certain Atlantian's water powers.

Canary called a break. Robin and Kid Flash were told in no uncertain terms to stop goofing around. Rob got changed into a fresh dry white jumpsuit. He was serious for the rest of the afternoon but his hyper-focus scores tanked after the lecture and he just got progressively more stressed out. Canary rubbed her face in frustration. For the last half of the afternoon they'd focused on just Superboy and Robin because it was the most successful pair up.

Conner was ready to throttle Robin by the end of the day because Robin was rarely able to do this stupid special thing he was supposed to be able to do. Everyone could tell. Rob'd flinch trying to protect himself or instinctively throw a batarang at a threat and his performance times were only sometimes in the zone they were hoping for. "WHY CAN'T YOU JUST TRUST ME!" Roared Superboy in fury just before Black Canary called a break.

Robin, his nerves completely frayed, took off and hid.

"Conner," she explained quietly. "Hyper focus is not a natural thing for anyone. It is shutting down part of his natural survival instinct. Massive adrenaline or enthusiastic interest usually trigger it. The five hour training session is probably interfering with his success at this point."

"So fear or fun you mean?" Conner asked looking confused. He could hear Wally calling for Robin to come play video games. Robin wasn't answering. Frankly Conner wasn't used to Robin failing at something.

Robin disappeared for the rest of the day. When Black Canary tried to track him down it turned out he'd gone back to the Batcave and was punishing the aerial equipment there for the next several hours. Batman tried to get him to come back but he refused even under threat of sitting out the next mission.

Wally texted Roy about it because it was rare for Rob to just freak out like that. Roy called them a bunch of bloody idiots. He got Canary on the phone.

"So you thought it would be a good idea to single out your youngest team member who also happens to be a non-meta and yell at him for not playing helpless for hours on end and then you get frustrated with him when he effectively tells you where you can shove your training and storms off refusing to co-operate any more?" Roy yelled. "You're freaking bloody ignorant idiots. How for the love of Joker Venom is that supposed to make him feel like anything but a liability to the team? Forget about your stupid hyper-focus for a minute and tell me if it's worth it."

Conner could hear Roy yelling at Canary on the other end of the phone. He needed someone to talk to about what he was hearing but he wasn't supposed to eavesdrop so it couldn't be Canary. Normally he'd ask Robin about something like this. He decided to try talking to Kaldur.

"Roy is right," Kaldur eventually announced. "If hyper-focus is achieved through fear or fun these training exercises are set up for Robin to fail. There is nothing fun about being intentionally placed in a position of vulnerability, we got ticked at him for horsing around and trying to make it fun and ..."

"And if he trusts me he shouldn't be afraid," finished Conner regretting loosing his temper.

"You know what doesn't help?" offered Wally who'd come to talk to Kaldur about pretty much the exact same thing as Conner. "Rob isn't usually terribly afraid for himself. He's usually afraid for others."

Conner looked insulted but it looked like Kaldur was listening so naturally Wally tried to talk to the person who was looking pissed. "It's not about anyone's abilities. Gah, how do I explain this," and now Black Canary was off the phone with Roy and listening too because she too had wanted to talk to Kaldur about this.

"In his head watching someone he cares about get hurt, hurts more then if he just took the hit himself," she finished.

"Exactly!" agreed Wally.

Hacking or defusing a bomb twice as fast was a golden carrot. It sounded great. Robin dutifully sat out the next mission as punishment for refusing to co-operate with training.

Roy had burned off Robin's annoyance at the whole defenceless protected flower thing after a nice long motorcycle ride followed by a healthy session of bad guy butt kicking and greasy unhealthy food consumption but Rob knew he wasn't mission ready so he hadn't argued on sitting out the mission at all.

Robin still went patrolling with Batman. He trusted Batman to pick up his slack even if he was off his game a little. The next week and a half patrolling with Batman proved he wasn't mission ready.

Batman roared at him and gave him escalating punishments when several times over the next few patrols Robin slipped into hyper-focus mode paying exclusive attention to something; be it a combat, a crime scene investigation or hacking, putting himself in a position of risk.

Robin didn't argue. He took the punishments calmly. He actually seemed to finally relax while scrubbing the Batcave with a toothbrush, and...

"Robin what are you doing?" Batman looked at Robin confused and irritated.

"Working ahead in math while cleaning the cave."

"Why are you writing with the pencil in your toes?" demanded Batman.

"Building fine motor control in my toes helps with my agility. I like math and you said I couldn't play music in the cave because it bothers the bats and you took away my mp3 player but my brain was bored just scrubbing stuff with a toothbrush."

I have the weirdest child on the face of the planet thought Batman.

"Batman?" asked Robin tentatively. "The team's mission yesterday didn't go so well. I've been getting annoyed emails because, well because I didn't show and they figure I let them down and they needed a hacker."

Batman grunted. He hoped Robin had learned that you don't just walk out on training. He so didn't want to have a discussion with Robin who had one bare foot holding a pencil doing math and who was still scrubbing away with the toothbrush in hand. It felt like Robin was being completely disrespectful half ignoring him while trying to hold a conversation. "If you want to talk to me put your sock and boot back on, put down the toothbrush and talk to me!" he growled.

Instead Robin flipped open his holo-watch and composed an email. "Sir, I don't understand what you want of me. You've been training me for years to pay attention to my surroundings. You've always told me not to put the mission before my personal safety. You are furious with me for hyper-focusing but you've been asking me to train myself to let it happen. Everyone is angry with me and I don't know what I am supposed to do." He hit send.

Batman read the email then stalked off to go research ADHD **again**. About two hours later he called out, "The punishment is cancelled. Put your shoe on. We need to talk to the team and Canary." He looked down from where he was standing over Robin. "That's not actually half bad ,... toe writing."

Turned out the ADHD brain often paid better attention to emotional or stressful discussions with the aid of motion or fidgeting. Batman and Bruce knew this but it was an easy detail to forget. If he really needed Robin or Dick to think about something movement helped. Basketball, stretching, he had to be doing something. It **wasn't** going to be toe writing and scrubbing the Batcave. Batman growled a little and headed to the zeta terminal.

The team and Canary sat around one of the old conference tables. Batman didn't sit. "There will be no more hyper-focus training. The entire team will reinforce guard duty training. There have been a lot of injuries."

"Why is the hyper focus training stopping?" asked Canary.

With someone finally acting as his advocate Robin spoke up. "BC if I throw a baseball at your head do you think about how to catch it or how to get out of the way or do you just do it? I don't hold back when I'm hacking. I'm not intentionally going half speed. I have had to work very hard to learn to focus in ways that keep myself and others safe; to scan through everything demanding my attention."

Robin didn't sound his normal cocky self. He sounded defensive and uncomfortable. He kept looking to Batman.

Canary sighed, "Encouraging hyper-focus undoes that discipline. It doesn't just put you at risk when you're defusing the bomb, it puts you at risk all the time. Robin I didn't mean to imply you were intentionally going half speed."

Conner slouched down in his seat because that was kind of what he'd thought. He had trouble understanding this.

Robin nodded awkwardly. "I'd have been a liability on the last mission. It messed with my head big time. Batman's been on my case about it all week because all of a sudden I'll zero in on something unintentionally and not see the goon or the gun or the whatever."

Hearing that, Kaldur looked rather defeated because he'd assumed Robin had gone off on some kind of juvenile pout and he really should have been defending him not letting the team attack him. They should know each other better than this by now. Robin, when it came to missions, was never juvenile. This whole training fiasco had been brutal on their youngest member. Megan had been the only one consistently defending Robin. She kept saying something was wrong and that Robin had been trying but that he didn't understand what was wrong so he couldn't communicate it.

Batman nodded for Robin that it was time to go.

Wally called out, "Dude? You're in the company of misfits here. We roll with people the way they are. Seriously ...a speedster, a Martian, a Kryptonian clone, an Atlantian, a medival weapon specialist and a ADHD ninja, come on; we all fit in sooo well."

Rob flashed him a quick smirk of a smile and a backhanded wave but this wasn't anyone's idea of a fun way to be the centre of attention and it was obvious Rob just wanted out of there.

Once they were back at the cave and the capes were off Bruce pulled Dick into a hug. There was nothing wrong with ADHD. A lot of the most incredible people through history were wired that way. It was just a little difficult to be understanding sometimes. "Let's go shoot some hoops chum."

"So," spoke Kaldur tiredly. "Is it reasonable to assign Superboy or Kid Flash as Robin's partner to guard him as a precaution if it is likely that Robin will be doing a mission critical focused activity?"

"It is both reasonable and prudent," agreed Canary.

"It's not like he didn't have someone keeping guard before when he was hacking from an exposed location or something," protested Artemis. "We just know now that when things really get dicey it's a good idea to be a little more vigilant on his behalf because there's a chance he's checked out on our behalf, nobody home but me and the computer or bomb or whatever, you know."

On our behalf... thought Conner determined to keep an eye on the count down timer next time Robin was defusing a bomb. Protect him when he needs protecting but don't do that thing Red Arrow said about not recognizing his combat skills contributions. Okay I can do that.


	2. Catching a Breeze

The team had been given the mission to secretly relocate samples of a highly contagious virus that had been weaponized. The Justice League had received intelligence indicating the lab working to counter the virus was under threat. Unfortunately the team was sent a little too late. They arrived just a little after the bad guys.

Gorrilla Grodd intended to release the virus. It had been engineered very carefully such that it only effected humans. Grodd would rule the world.

The League had already been called for back up. Young Justice was trying to delay Grodd until the League arrived.

Gorilla Grodd and Megan were trapped together in a psychic battle. Megan had been completely unprepared for Grodd's animal brutality but she was holding on to a sliver of will power that kept Grodd focused on her.

Artemis staying at range, least she too fall victim to Grodd's psychic powers, kept attacking Grodd trying to break his focus.

Superboy was currently being swarmed by Grodd's cyber-enhanced monkeys. The monkeys had him freaked out to the point that he was as much a hazard to his team as to the monkeys. Aqualad was desperately trying to bring Superboy to his senses. Superboy wasn't listening.

Kid Flash was guarding Robin as he hacked into a huge device that looked like a gun of some sort trying to deactivate it. The high pitched hum of the machine kept increasing in intensity. It was pointed at what was supposed to be the "top secret" underground laboratory.

Kid Flash ducked as a monkey came flying past. He raced around at the last moment body checking the monkey out of the air when he realized it was about to hit Rob who was completely focused on his hologlove. This was mission critical hacking. K.F. huffed uncomfortably. Rob hadn't seen the monkey that meant KF had to step up his game but, world wide threat and diminishing timeline... It made sense.

The gun thing was perched right on top of a cliff and Superboy was completely out of control.

When the monkeys broke out the machine guns, KF kicked his speed up a notch. They weren't taking out his best bud on his watch. Normally Superboy was on guard when Rob was hacking because Supes could bounce bullets but Conner was busy chucking monkeys around and causing mini-earthquakes.

The edge of the cliff sheared off taking the gun and Robin with it.

A machine gun monkey and KF were wrestling. KF broke free screaming for Robin.

Robin shot a grapple line out and pulled away from the main rock fall but the anchor point was in lose rock and the entire gun yanked out of the small hero's hands. KF watched as Rob in mid-air leaped from one piece of falling debris to another, twisting, flipping, dodging. He'd used his cape as a quasi parachute to catch the wind and angle his fall towards a gravel slope where he'd skidded and tumbled instead of splatting. It had been terrifying. It had been a three hundred foot fall. His grapple had failed. He should have been a pancake.

KF blinked watching as Robin instead he limped away sore and scraped but smiling. KF looked at the monkey beside him also staring down in fascination at the awesomely fortunate bird boy. It looked back to kid flash with a rather evil grin.

Robin had no way to get back up to the top of the cliff but the gun was destroyed and right about then, the back up arrived.

Kid Flash KO'd the monkey with extreme prejudice and ran down the side of the cliff. Completely freaked out. "Dude that was killing height."

Rob smirking waited patiently while KF calmed enough to stop pawing at him checking for injuries. The high tech material of his suit was scraped and torn into scrap.

"Somebody up there likes you," Artemis commented gravely when Robin limped onto the Bioship not much later.

The rest of the team insisted Robin report to the med bay to be checked out after the fall though he insisted he was fine.

Batman listened to Aqualad and Kid Flash report. He watched video footage captured by the bio-ship, so did Dinah. No one saw him white knuckle the keyboard as he watched his partner fall 300 ft amidst tons of falling rock and equipment. Bruce spent half of the night sitting by Dick's bed watching him sleep that night.

"He should be dead," Dinah commented. "The cape. That shouldn't have worked."

The video footage made the rounds of the JLA.

Martian Manhunter who was somewhat of a local expert on telekinesis was asked his opinion at the next weekly JLA meeting. "I'll tell you the same thing I told Batman. Robin has no special mental powers. This is the sixth time in four years I've been asked to evaluate him. He has slightly above average empathy while still being in the normal range for a human and his brain patterns are indicative of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. He has no detectable special mental powers. But I agree that the video footage shows him defying physics. He must have been acted upon by some unidentified force."

Batman had seen it, times when Robin appeared to defy the laws of gravity. He had four examples saved from the cowl cam. He'd run computer simulations on them and no matter how the calculations were done, some of the things Robin did in the air should have been impossible. Batman had thoroughly checked to be sure Robin wasn't a meta. Nothing.

"An unidentified force that appears to be either benign or benevolent; can we make note of it but move on to other matters?" suggested Superman.

Batman reluctantly nodded. A benign or benevolent unidentified force associated with Robin. Robin was his. He wouldn't ignore the issue but his investigations were currently at a stand still.

After the meeting had drawn to a close Wonder Woman made eye contact then waited until the room had cleared before she approached. "Batman, if it ever seems Robin is being targeted in unusual ways without a clear motive. Especially if it seems that he is hallucinating when that happens. Talk to me."

"Why?" demanded Batman.

"Robin speaks and reads Greek?" asked Wonder Woman.

The room had cleared out so the conversation turned more personal. "He picks up languages like a magnet Diana. When I first met him he spoke a half dozen languages and read in almost as many. If you have a theory I would like to hear it now rather than when he is under threat."

"It looked like it may have been godly intervention. Probably one of those with domain over wind, air, or luck. He is thirteen, though. He would have been claimed by his thirteenth birthday, no... never mind."

Batman went very still. "And if he was twelve?"

"Bruce?"

"Everyone had problems with how young he was Diana but I've said all along, I did not make him Robin. I just tried to stop him from getting himself killed doing what he was doing anyway. He kept sneaking out of the orphanage and taking on filth three times his age! I tried to redirect him. I tried to stall him with extra training. Yes. I lied about his age. He's actually not all that short."

"For a twelve year old?" asked Diana.

Bruce nodded. "He should in primary school but he's a freshmen in high school taking AP math courses(college level math) for fun. So how does being twelve instead of thirteen make a difference."

Kid Flash had wanted to see what the outcome of the JLA monthly meeting was. He had been seriously freaked out by Robin's fall and he needed it explained. Rob had hacked the security feed for him but he himself had no interest. He felt Batman was flogging a dead horse with the whole Robin shouldn't be able to move that way thing.

Kid Flash looked over at Robin who was playing video games. 12? He's four years younger than me not just three? Way to be ageist Wally get that out of your head. That whole too young to hang out with you thing is just stupid and it feeds into why Batman would lie. A real friend shouldn't care. It does explain why he doesn't seem interested in girls though. Oh crap I zoned out. What did Wonder Woman say?

Kid Flash texted Roy. "You knew R is 12?"

Roy texted back. "?"

Wally took that as a no. It was another moment or two later before Wally clued in that what he'd over heard was SECRET. Crap... He texted back Roy. "Erase text history!"

"10-4," was texted back then the phone rang. Roy didn't really have anything more coherent than Wally was coming up with right now. Bro-brain-short-circuit.

"I'm looking at him Roy and I don't know how to un-know it. I don't want to be weird with him now. He's my friend."

"Uh,..." Roy stuttered. "So if he's sick, do we still give him the kids meds or crap what does he weight now? Ah son of a Joker fart, Bat secrets suck!"

"Roy, random much?"

"Wally what do you want? We were all kids. Kids grow up. Robin's like an adult in a kid suit. You know that as well as I do. When I want someone to tell me what a grown up would do nine times out of ten I ask Rob and so do half of us freak shows," Roy snarked.

Wally who was finally calming down whispered, "Thanks Roy," and turned off his phone.

Conner turned to Robin with a confused look on his face and asked. "Why does it matter that you are twelve instead of thirteen?" He'd over heard Batman and Wonder Woman talking and had heard Wally's heart speed up. He heard the panicked call between Red Arrow and Kid Flash.

Kaldur, Artemis and M'gann stared between Robin and Conner looking shocked. Conner looked at Wally confused. Was that supposed to be a private conversation?

"What did Roy mean that Robin is an adult in a kid suit?" asked Conner confused.

Robin cackled then disappeared. Hidden in a discrete location he contacted Batman quickly.

Batman when he heard Robin's age had been outed on the team, he Zeta'd over.

"Robin your suspended from the team for the rest of the month for hacking the league meeting. Kid Flash you were spying and then releasing league information. This will be reported to your mentor. Canary, will assign appropriate punishment. For the rest of you, you have a decision to make. If you want Robin on the team, his age goes no further than this room. There has always been a significant resistance to Robin's involvement in league business due to his age. If you re-open that can of worms, the league will demand he be removed from the team." Batman nodded for Robin to head back to Gotham.

Robin wasn't smiling now. He raised a hand a little in a small goodbye. Kid Flash looked positively grim. Neither Canary nor Flash could come up with a punishment that would come close to possiblity of getting his best friend kicked off the team. Superboy looked angry. He was angry at himself for listening in and commenting on something he obviously shouldn't have. He was angry at Kid Flash and he was angry at Robin. Kaldur looked conflicted.

"No further than this room. No biggie right?" spoke Artemis.

"I am not comfortable withholding secrets from my King," spoke Kaldur.

Kid Flash looked at Aqualad. "Are you really withholding a secret or are you showing discretion with team sensitive information?"

"Who would I even tell," spoke M'gann. "I get glimpses of secrets from people all the time. I won't tell! I know better now! Unfiltered secrets, that's a Martian fantasy. It didn't even really happen on Mars. Things were more open there but there was always a stronger mind with something locked away. If we can't keep a years age difference a secret, it's no wonder he's not allowed to share his identity."

Superboy grunted. He was born a year and a half ago and hardly anyone acted like that was a big deal. "I **can** keep a secret," he declared like someone was testing his competency.

Kaldur still looked uncomfortable.

Kid Flash looked kind of green.


	3. Disaster Strikes

Aqualad kept them in suspense for a week until he had talked to his mentor. He returned to confess that Aquaman had explained in no uncertain terms that being on a team meant he would have secrets and it was up to him to decide if those secrets threatened the safety of Atlantis. The king of the deep was not interested in hearing Kaldur's every secret. He was disappointed that Kaldur needed this clarified. The superhero world was chalk full of sensitive information.

"So you didn't rat him out?" Kid Flash clarified.

Kaldur had told no one Robin's age. He wasn't exactly happy that Robin was under the threshold of what the surface dwellers considered teens or young adults. That meant that if anything happened on a mission he was responsible for endangering or failing to protect a child. Before he had known Robin's true age, that burden was on Batman alone.

Kaldur grunted in frustration remembering the confrontation with the League trying to get themselves recognized as contributing full fledged heroes. If Kaldur ignored the age and judged Robin on merit alone, Robin belonged on the team.

The team needed Robin. The small ninja was their strategist. He was their tech expert. His stealth and escapology skills were invaluable. He knew more about the criminal underworld than anyone else on the team and his fighting skills were top notch.

Kaldur also didn't really want to be the bad guy responsible for Robin being off the team. Robin was Kid Flash's best friend. He was Superboy's mentor in life as person rather than a tool. Artemis for some strange reason seemed more self confident when Robin was around. M'gann had incredible powers but she depended on Robin for guidance on the socially appropriate use of her powers in human society.

The annoying thing was, if this issue had concerned any other member of the team, Kaldur would have gone to Robin for guidance about it!

The first few missions after the team found out Robin's age were a little awkward. Everyone was a little more protective then was strictly productive.

Kaldur realized belatedly that Batman had been testing them. He asked Robin about it. Robin smirked.

"Aqualad of course it was a test. He's Batman!" Robin cackled.

"None of that stressed you out at all?" demanded Kaldur.

"I had faith in you. It wasn't much fun being on communication lock down and being forbidden from patrolling, from the cave and everything. Anything to do with the release of secrets is going to incur a severe punishment."

"It seems harsh," commented Kaldur. "Kid Flash indicated that Batman himself was responsible for the information release. It would have been on the security log even if Kid Flash had not been listening in on the meeting.

Robin shrugged. "I was out other day and there was this woman screaming at her kid in Polish. It drew alarmed stares until this guy speaks up and said what happened. The boy had stepped out in front of a car and was almost killed. He wasn't paying attention. Next thing you know, the alarmed stares are wry smiles and folks shaking their heads in sympathy for the mom."

Kaldur stared at Robin, the oldest 12 year old he'd ever met.

The League was having trouble with a new enemy. They weren't clear what was happening but the damage left behind was staggering. There had been a lot of weather issues. There were theories that some kind of chemical warfare was involved. Civilian accounts had been abnormally conflicting, hysterical and nonsensical. Batman had been called in to investigate. The League was still trying to establish a pattern and motivation behind the incidents. The clues led back to some kind of organization working out of New York with old world ties in Greece and other places in the Mediterranean. The team had had no missions.

Robin had been patrolling Gotham alone for most of the week. Wednesday and Friday he came to the mountain just to hang out. As soon as Batman came back Friday night though, he bailed on the team bonding night.

Bruce pulled Dick into a hug. "Missed you chum."

"Did you get everything sorted?" asked Dick bouncing on his heels, happy to see Bruce after so long.

"Nope, sorry chum. I just came back because I promised to take you to the screening for that movie. I scheduled a visit to that new escape room after. I thought you'd get a laugh out of it. Later tonight we'll patrol then I have to head back out. How did the week go on your own and how's school? Did you end up having to call in Clark?"

Alfred smiled as the week's stress melted off the two heroes.

Richard was grinning and laughing at some comment Bruce had made as they headed out together for a while. Bruce had that smile on his face. The one that belonged only to his ward.

Sunday saw Bruce back on a plane headed for Greece. Batman was investigating as Bruce this time. He hadn't even made it out of the country before the communication problems started in Gotham starting with a large scale blackout. During the flight Bruce remained blissfully uninformed. Bruce tried to phone back to Gotham to report in when his plane landed but the connection kept dropping out.

The Gotham auto generated news post on his phone caught his attention almost immediately, stopping his struggles to get the phone working. They were reporting storms, flooding, electrical disturbances but the headline was an explosion at the main transfer station. There was video footage. Bruce paled when he pulled it up and read the scrolling tag line at the bottom of the report.

 _Gotham's Boy Wonder killed in attack on Gotham Transfer Station._

Robin and he couldn't quite make out who the villain was from the grainy footage but there was a fight. It looked like Robin had been electrocuted. His suit was insulted against ordinary voltage but Bruce watched as a massive electrical charge threw him out of the camera frame. He watched further but there was no more revealing footage. There was plenty of speculation.

Every news channel on the east coast of the US had tag lines Boy Wonder killed but it was always the same minute and a half of footage. There were no details. There was no confirmation, nothing more concrete than the initial footage showing him thrown off screen. The remains of the villain were there, but whoever it had been was unrecognizable. The villian's body was charred and still burning.

Bruce scrambled to find his League communicator which he kept in his luggage after Green Lantern once ended up with his League communicator confiscated as a suspicious device, interrogated by airport security for several hours, only succeding in getting himself out of the mess by calling in a favor from a friend in high office.

All Bruce got off the League was that Superman had gone to investigate and found no sign of Robin. That had been hours ago.

Bruce couldn't get in touch with Alfred. Communications with Gotham were fried. He couldn't call the Batplane. The Zeta system in Athens frizted out when it tried to connect to Gotham. Bruce went back to the airport and haggled with the airlines for the next available flight back to Gotham. All flights were being diverted away from Gotham. The whole city was experiencing rolling blackouts and a massive storm had rolled in.

Bruce's set down in Gotham a day and a half later on a military aircraft. It was the only thing coming in or out of Gotham. He'd pulled a lot of strings to get home as fast as he could. Alfred was waiting for him.

"He is alive Master Bruce but that is the end of the good news I'm afraid."

Bruce held up his hand to forestall Alfred for a moment. He closed his eyes, just breathing for a few moments. Alive, anything else he could deal with.

"He is hurt?" Bruce asked for confirmation. There was no way he'd left that altercation undamaged.

Alfred nodded. "There is more. Child protective services has removed him from our care and placed him with a kinship foster. Previously undiscovered relatives came forth. They claimed to have proof of relation and believed him to be under threat from an outside party. He was taken by ambulance headed out of state not even an hour ago. I am certain Master Richard will be confused and scared when he regains consciousness."

"How could that happen so abrupty without informing either Richard or myself? Why would they release him out into this weather? There are road closures due to floods and storm damage. The main routes are jamed by the mass excodus that happens every time things get dicey in Gotham. None of the traffic signals are operating. There is no justification for patient transfer in these conditions."

"Though the officials were very insistent at the time, not long after the ambulance pulled away, CPS and the police began denying any awareness of involvement. The police involvement was suspicious from the start. Emergency services are somewhat otherwise occupied in Gotham right now. The officials involved are all having trouble accounting for several hours. All the change of custody records have since been disappearing."

The remainder of the discussions waited until they raced through driving rains into the security of the Bentley.

"Has his identity been compromised? He was injured as Robin," Bruce was in the back waiting for a little more information before he could be sure who needed to solve this problem. Bruce or Batman.

"I suspect it has been compromised however he was registered at the hospital as Richard Grayson several hours after the initial incident. Officially no connection has been made. He had been changed into ill fitting clothes before being delivered to the hospital in a cab by woman who later claimed familial connections. We do not know who knows what. Before the change of custody went through I collected the items that had been on him when he arrived at the hospital. You may go through those for clues."

"Are any of his trackers functioning? Where did the cab driver pick him up? What cab company was it."

"Even the subcutaneous tracker was disrupted by the electrical charge he sustained. I have made no investigations into the cab. Other priorities prevailed."

"His injuries?"

"He had severe burns on his right hip and wrist."

Bruce was not chalant as Dick would say. He interrupted Alfred before his faithful servant could finish. "The hip would have been caused where his utility belt pressed against the bio metrics sewn into his suit. Perhaps the wrist computer and bio metrics wiring provided enough of a electrical path to divert the energy from his heart and save his life? Do you know if he required resuscitation? Was he unconscious or comatose? You did get a look at his medical chart didn't you? Does the League know he's alive?"

"There was no resuscitation on record. He was unconscious but drugged rather than comatose, the burns would have been quite painful. I have not had the opportunity to contact the league. Communications inside of Gotham have been very disrupted with the electrical storm and power outages. I was attempting to track the ambulance and contact you Master Bruce. Unfortunately due to the electrical disruptions, the surveillance on the ambulance has not been continuous."

"What cause of admission was recorded in his hospital records?"

"Attacked, beaten and tortured with electricity. The police records state he was targeted because of the recently discovered connection to relations. It was part of what expedited the change of custody and the medical transfer."

"Attacked and beaten? His other injuries specifically, Alfred?" Bruce kept reminding himself all of this was better than dead. His poor boy.

"...concussion, extensive severe bruising including contusion of the liver, broken left collar bone and broken ankle."

"Could they have stolen him away if I had officially adopted him before now?"

"Don't start that nonsense Master Bruce. What if and how is this some personal fault will only impede your efforts."

Bruce was tired. He'd barely slept the last two days despite having little to truly do but wait and agonize. Nothing about any of this seemed above the board. Had some unsavoury character unintentionally hurt his boy beyond the scope of their nefarious purposes then scrambled to acquire aid for him before absconding with him in this convoluted scheme? Change of custody? Medical transfers out of state? Disappearing records? Who knew he was Robin and could the information release be controlled? Was he being cared for? Why bring him in for medical care otherwise? Was more than one party involved?

The Batsignal was up in the sky. "Alfred what's that about if you could hypothesize for me."

"With the power outages and storms, there have been multiple Arkham breakouts. The Gotham Forest River hydroelectric dam burst in the storms. The flood control mechanisms were tied into the works at the main transfer station. There is flooding all along the north-east. The very public electrocution of Robin is an issue as well. Gotham is rioting. She needs her heroes invincible sir."

Not long later, Batman stepped out of the shadows atop the station house startling Commissioner Gordan slightly.

Commissioner Gordan was distraught. "Robin..." he couldn't bring himself to say anything further yet.

"Is alive but unavailable at this time," Batman growled.

The Commissioner stared at Batman for a moment or two. Batman could see the doubt and grief shining in the man's eyes. He'd known Robin since he was eight. "He'll be in my prayers."

Other than a confirmation of rioting, and a list of escaped convicts. Batman got no new intelligence. His next stop was Mount Justice though it took some time to get the Zeta up and functioning. Nothing was happening fast in Gotham right now. The team and their representative mentors plus Wonder Woman were meeting him there. The Green Lanterns were off world or no doubt they too would be waiting at the Mountain.

When the Zeta finally announced Batman all eyes turned towards him. The faces were grim. Batman didn't waste a moment.

"He's alive," Batman started. Instantly he was interrupted by questions and exclamations.

"How?" / "His attacker was literally electrocuted into charcoal!" / "Where is he?" / "How badly hurt" / "How much electricity was in the charge?" / "The god's own luck!" / "Thank heaven."

"I don't have as many answers as I'd like. He was admitted to a public hospital by an unidentified party under his civilian name, he'd been stripped of his uniform and was wearing second hand cloths. He was badly injured but the electronics in his uniform seemed to have diverted the worst of the electrical damage from him." Batman paused as the young team had been murmuring among themselves. He waited for silence, a deadly and impatient glare fixed on the team.

"He was unconscious upon admission and remained so for the duration of his hospital stay. He was transferred out of state via ambulance under suspicious circumstances. Everyone believed the paperwork and reasoning behind the medical transfer to be sound but hours after, everyone involved denies approving the transfer or approving the change of custody."

"Wait change of custody?" asked Flash.

"Child services removed Robin from his foster family claiming a kinship foster had come forth. While he was still unconscious, he was removed from hospital and no one remembers why it was a good idea or how it could be even remotely legal under the circumstances."

"So," summarized Flash. "Mind control, potential identity breech, Robin is injured and missing?"

"Gotham is under threat due to the media release involving Robin, storm and flood damage, multiple Arkham breakouts, rolling blackouts and rioting. The storms and blackout are consistent with the issues we've encountered involving New York and Rome. The scale is just much larger." Batman paused for a few moments looking at Superman who had agreed to support Robin when Batman left for Rome.

Superman spoke up. "Communications into and out of Gotham were cut off all at once. I knew he was in trouble because of the dog whistle Krypto gave him years ago. There was no tech in it to disrupt. I was there searching before the league contacted me. I couldn't find any sign of him. I searched so did Krypto. The broadcasts that everyone saw were time delayed by about an hour. If the dog whistle was used it is likely Robin was conscious at least for a little while after the incident."

"Bats you're needed in Gotham. No one else is going to be able to calm down that mess," commented Flash. "One of us will get Rob. Kid Flash and I will go."

"I'm going too," called out Red Arrow from the back.

"We're a team," protested Superboy. "Shouldn't we go after one of our own?"

The team was also muttering about Robin and foster care.

"I thought he had real parents," protested Miss Martian.

"I thought Batman was his dad," replied Superboy sounding disappointed.

"Why wouldn't he have been adopted? He's a good boy. He's nice," protested Miss Martian in response.

"Maybe his parents are alive but he was removed from their custody because they were crappy parents? You know, abusive or neglectful or crooked or something. Then he wouldn't be available for adoption; I don't think," suggested Artemis.

Batman glared at the lot of them wanting to tell them to stuff a sock in it. He'd tried for years to legally adopt Robin, ..Richard. The Gotham system was broken. Nothing he did could make it happen.

"Don't say that about his parents Arty," suggested Kid Flash looking uncomfortable and offering no further information. The league members present also looked uncomfortable.

Finally it was decided that the team would go, supported by Wonder Woman. The team looked vaguely unsettled by the inclusion of Wonder Woman on the response team. Normally they worked with one of their mentors if someone from the league was joining them. They'd been hammered with reminders that Robin's recovery was to be COVERT! His identity was not to be released to anyone including team members if at all possible.

Artemis who didn't like the idea of complicating this mission more than necessary tried to discretely pull up the hospital records, the police records, the ambulance records, anything. If the bad guys knew Robin's identity why were they putting themselves at a disadvantage trying to keep Robin's identity from his friends and team mates? A black shadow drew up behind her silently.

"Did you find anything?" Batman's deep growl queried.

Artemis just about jumped out of her skin. "No."

"I didn't hide the information. Someone unknown is doing that," Batman sounded like barely restrained fury incarnate.

Artemis stammered explanations, quickly shutting down computer screens and scrambling to shuffle her notes away. When she turned around Batman had disappeared. Artemis collapsed back into her chair in relief. She took a few steadying breaths then headed off to board the Bioship.

 **(The internet news reports worked because intermittent power allowed the uploading of the information to carriers outside of Gotham. Poor Batman...**

 **So, theories? It was hilarious listening to my son's theories. He gets so excited when an obvious clue pops up then so frustrated when sometimes I've gone in a direction he wasn't expecting. His favourite bit was picturing Batman and Robin in an escape room. He and his friends went to an escape room for his birthday. He was all Pfft! Batman and Robin would so own that!** **)**


	4. Dogs, Turds and Tornados

Dick woke in the back of an ambulance strapped down. The ambulance attendant or EMT started with concussion protocol questions.

"Can you tell me your name?" A flashlight was shone in each of Dick's eyes in turn. A monitor was going beep, beep taking his heart rate and other vital statistics.

Dick was pretty sure he'd been Robin when he'd been hurt but his mask was gone and he was in a hospital gown? That didn't make sense. You got put in a hospital gown after arrival at the hospital. Seated on the other side of him was a stranger wearing jeans and a white collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He was blond, muscular and there was something unsettling about his blue eyes. Dick couldn't put his finger on it.

The EMT repeated the question. "Can you tell me your name?"

There was no way Dick was answering that question when he didn't know which identity was relevant.

"Your name's Richard," the blond prompted gently.

I'm sure the last thing I remember was a Robin ... thing... thought Dick confused, his eyes wandered the ambulance blearily looking for clues.

"Please, I need to assess him that's not actually helping," corrected the EMT. "How old are you?"

Still Dick said nothing but honestly he was only marginally conscious.

"You're twelve," spoke the blond, though the EMT grunted sounding annoyed.

How does he know I'm twelve? It's not even on my school records. Who is he? What's going on? Richard fuzzily turned his focus inward trying to remember what happened. A memory flickered through him of the blond man launching a ... a ...

"Calm down. Breath slowly." The attendant tried to calm him.

The heart rate monitor was going crazy. As his heart stared to race, his level of alertness went up and the pain woke up. Dick panted trying to control the pain and not black out so he wouldn't loose eye contact with the guy that threw the freaking lightening bolt at giant bat monster trying to um.. the details were gone. Dick couldn't remember who the good guys and bad guys were. Who was working together? There had been more people, things, ... ow, ow Dick couldn't think. It felt like the ambulance was sliding sideways and the edges of his vision kept greying out. Concussion and trauma induced amnesia sucked.

"Slow breaths son," the lightening man said in a voice toned to be soothing. He looked worried. It panicked Dick more when lightening man reached for him and ... gently ran his fingers through Dick's hair?

 _Don't know you. Don't touch me,_ thought Dick stubbornly silent. Dick or Robin which was it? He could feel traces of spirit gum pulling near the corners of his eyes. Where was Bruce, Alfred or even Clark? Was Bruce in Greece still? How much time had passed?

Dick frantically tried to pull himself together enough for self assessment. Um...catheterized, IV, oxygen nose thingy, one arm in a sling and bound to him, foot cast, strapped down,... hours or days? Robin escape! His befuddle brain was locked onto freeing himself from the Velcro straps which should have been easy. They were just patient retention straps to keep him from rolling off the gurney. His concussion couldn't handle his skyrocketing blood pressure everything was spinning, the ambulance went over a rough patch on the road, Dick threw up and blacked out. They were still cleaning him up when his eyes fluttered open again so Dick knew he'd only blacked out for a few moments.

Gross umm.. food and blood in the vomit. Umm so, less then twenty four hours and internal injuries? Panting softly, he tried to stay calm and still. It seemed all he could really do to help himself at the moment.

The two men were arguing about pain medication and calming him and medical protocols but it didn't really register with Dick. He was using every pain control trick Bruce had ever taught him to try to get himself back under control.

Lightening man drew Dick back to himself when he began pleading softly in Romani? "Richard I know it hurts. We cannot give you anything more for the pain because of your head injury. We'll be there in about an hour now. Just stay calm." He was fingering a small square golden granola bar.

In Latin, he whispered, "Father, please I beg your aid."

Catholic priest wondered Dick? The EMT was talking again. Though Dick had no intention of talking, he cooperated with the other aspects of the injury assessment as best he could.

"Richard. Follow the light with your eyes. Richard can you hear me? Follow the light with your eyes."

Both the ambulance attendant and the priest? seemed relieved when his eyes finally tracked the light and he started to obey other assessment commands. It had taken an embarrassing amount of time to fully process that no matter what was going on, he was obviously on the receiving end of some high level medical care and he was in no shape to do anything but wait for now and hope to contact Bruce, or someone from the League when he got the chance. Waiting was not his strongest skill.

Why did the priest speak Rom?

A short while later the ambulance began to accelerate and swerve from side to side. There was a roaring and mechanical crunching sound. The priest and EMT tried to brace themselves and keep him and the gurney from being tossed around. There was a jarring impact and the entire ambulance flipped and was tossed in a roll.

Hanging sideways still strapped to the gurney, no doubt in worse shape then before, oddly enough almost instantly the pain started to pleasantry fade. Dick's last conscious recall was of the EMT swearing and yanking the IV out of him. Apparently the dosage meter on his pain meds had been bashed in...

^ŏ^

Piper had been the first to spot the mechanical three headed hell hound snorting black smoke at them although it was a little hard to miss. "LEO!" she banged on her old friend's arm frantically gesturing.

"I see it, I see it! I'm sorry Pipes. Ambulances weren't exactly built for high speed chases and such!"

Piper tried banging on the back of the drivers compartment to get Jason's attention but this style of ambulance had complete separation between the passenger transport section and the driver section probably following a philosophy of an un-distracted driver is a safer driver.

"Do something Pipes," yelled Leo swerving to get away from the mechanical Cerberus. "That's actually a really cool looking construct. We are being chased by a simply gorgeous work of art."

"Stop fanboying on the mech-tech idiot! What am I supposed to do. Ask it nicely to stop chasing us? I got him to the hospital! I got the police and CPS to release him to us and I talked Emergency Services into loaning us an ambulance and an EMT. You two need to start pulling your weight!" snapped Piper.

Leo swerved the ambulance again to avoid the snapping of a huge mechanical head. "Take the wheel! I've got an idea!" It was getting really hard to see with the huge clouds of thick black smoke being belched out by the monster. Leo sniffed, not that he didn't already have a lungful of the smoke which smelled like the byproduct of a tire fire. It didn't smell combustible.

Leo unbuckled and started to climb out the window. Piper shrieked, unbuckled and climbed over into the driver's seat hitting the gas pedal and trying to keep the ambulance from crashing into something. She did up the seatbelt again with one hand. Luckily they were on an lightly travelled section of back road having fairly recently escaped the heavy traffic of the Gotham mass exodus.

Leo clinging to the side of the ambulance yelled. "Pass me the fire extinguisher!"

Piper screamed back, "A little busy here!" but momentarily, she did pass up the fire extinguisher.

Leo clung to the light mount on the top of the ambulance as they side swiped a Honda trying to avoid a massive metal paw.

"This is a colossally stupid idea!" Yelled Leo as he took aim and tossed the fire extinguisher into the maw of the terrible beast. It snapped it up hungrily. Leo concentrated pulling forth fire and funnelling it towards C2-D2 the Cerberus robo-construct thing. At first thing just got red and hot but all of a sudden things worked a little too well. The compressed gas of the fire extinguisher exploded just as something else inside the beast ignited in a ball of flame. The explosion sent the construct tumbling into the ambulance throwing Leo off and sending the ambulance rolling into the ditch.

Leo looked up from his soft landing in a large pile of cow manure. Eh.. he wasn't sure what was worse, dying or this method of surviving. "I have a soap emergency," whimpered Leo before looking up to see what had happened to the ambulance and C2-D2 the monster dog.

C2-D2 looked like a half dead rabid robo-dog. It was foaming out of the one mouth. The sluggish grey fire retardant foam leaking out of it's mouth looked a nasty piece of work. Slowly with the middle head hanging limp and lifeless robo-dog started climbing to his feet. The right head was growling viciously and the thing was headed toward Leo. The left head was snarling at the ambulance.

It was around this time that Jason finally managed to climb out of the back of the ambulance, leap up onto the second dog head and ram his sword with two hands and a screaming battle cry right into the glowing eye socket of the monster. When that was not enough, a blue bolt of lightening travelled the length of the sword and Cerberus the robo-dog exploded.

Leo sighed. Life as a demigod. I'm standing in poop. A mechanical masterpiece has just exploded in front of me. We totalled the stolen ambulance. Jason's in a bad mood. Piper crawled out of the ambulance looking a little battered. She kicked the remains of the metal monster and screamed in frustration. Leo watched then amended his mental summary. Jason and Piper are in a bad mood and I'm kind of happy about it because I'm thinking things could have gone worse, I think? "Is the kid alright?" asked Leo.

"He's alive but it's not good," spoke the EMT. "What happened? Did a transport truck carrying scrap metal spin out in front of us and total the ambulance?"

Piper and Jason looked at each other. "Yeah... That." They agreed in tandem.

Piper searched through her purse as Jason announced that they had to get out of here. NOW!

EMT pulled Richard's stretcher out of the ambulance. Piper waited worriedly as he knelt by the stretcher fussing with assorted needles and bandages. He turned the oxygen off because of the flaming pile of scrap surrounding them. When he paused his fussing and announced, "He's as stable as I can manage but we need to get him to hospital immediately." Piper spritzed him with what looked like a small perfume bottle.

The winds rose around them. Piper grimaced. She wasn't the biggest fan of Jason's storm horse. She knelt and undid the straps securing Richard to the stretcher.

Leo standing nearby dripping in poop kind of grimaced too. "I'd help but he needs sterile with the burns and all, and that's not exactly me right now."

Jason came and very carefully lifted Richard onto Tempest. Piper mounted behind as well. "Leo can you take care of the ambulance guy and get to camp on your own?" Jason asked.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll think of something. Go take care of the kid. I'll catch you up," Leo answered back waving them off. He watched as the storm that was Tempest plowed across the fields leaving a path of destruction. Leo climbed over the cab of the ambulance and hit the radio to communicate back with 911 dispatch. "Eww... My kingdom for a warehouse of wet wipes," he complained after he'd made the call.

Leo wandered over to the EMT wondering if he'd been hurt in the crash or if he'd just blacked out after Piper used the Lethos spray on him. The guy seemed to be breathing and all but he wasn't going to remember a thing. There was an irrigation pond a few fields over. Leo pulled a bar of soap out of his tool belt and wandered off. He wasn't abandoning the EMT he was just freshening up a bit.

It was a while later when Wonder Woman and the Team reached the site where satellite imagery showed the ambulance wreckage. The EMT had already been removed to a local hospital. Police and fire crews were on site trying to make sense of the wreckage and clear the highway.

"It looks like a cross between when Mr. Twister has attacked and an exploded transformer. The, the transforming robot kind not the fried my best bud kind. There is all of this high tech looking trash and a straight line of twister looking damage," observed Kid Flash awkwardly. Kaldur rested a reassuring hand on his shoulder for a few moments before bending to examine the wreckage himself.

"I can't feel his presence and there's no one here now," spoke Miss Martian.

"This wreckage is the remains of a celestial bronze construct," observed Wonder Woman. "Robin is wrapped up in this somehow but it doesn't make sense." Wonder Woman looked in the direction of the twister trail seeming pensive.

"What about this is inconsistent with your expectation?" asked Kaldur.

"I do not understand why he was taken to a hospital or why an ambulance was used for transport."

"He was hurt," stated Superboy. "When people are hurt, you take them to a doctor."

Frustrated, but not exactly frustrated with Superboy, Wonder Woman protested. "When the kind of people that would be attacked by a celestial bronze construct are injured, no, they don't go to a doctor. They have their own healing ways."

"Miss Martian can the Bioship generate a map of New York and overlay the path of the tornado wreckage," asked Wonder Woman.

"Certainly," Miss Martian rushed to be helpful. Momentarily they were all staring at a map with a small directional arrow overlaid.

"I know where they're going," spoke Wonder Woman.

^ŏ^

"You know he's not going to be pleased with you," Percy pointed out.

"Angry and alive is better then dead and happy," protested Jason.

Piper just looked exhausted and worried.


	5. He's OURS!

_In which Kid Flash over estimates the comprehension abilities of a twelve year old with a brain injury who is waking up from a coma._

Dick woke in a bed with Kid Flash looking down at him and grinning. "Hey Rob! You want the short hand? This is messed up."

Dick had a nasogastric tube up his nose, shifting slightly he could tell he was still attached to the... pee bag he thought derisively. There was a mask breathy thing but no beep, beep, beep thing or finger clippy thing or pokey drippy tubes on poles. Urgh, he could remember the word nasogastric but the rest of his vocabulary was kindergarten level. He was dressed in an enormous orange t-shirt that said um... he couldn't make his eyes focus well enough to make it out. He was in a small log cabiney room. "Waz goin on?" pleaded Dick. His face felt like it was still half asleep and his mouth wouldn't co-operate forming words.

"You're the incompatible filling in a Hero sandwich. Have some sunglasses. You're going to go by Robin for now." Kid Flash gently put a familiar pair of glasses on Robin's face. "Dude you look so confused right now I would totally snap pictures to capture the look on your face for posterity if I didn't think it would be cruel. I totally called it though, you can talk, that wasn't brain damage that was Bat-foo!"

"How long?" croaked Robin.

"Couple of days. You slipped into a coma after the ambulance was attacked but no one was sure how much was narcotics O.D. or head injury and the nose food tube is special meds that have completely messed up traditional cognitive and physical response assessments. Do you remember the ambulance at all?"

Robin nodded uncertainly. There had been a scary Romani priest? Why was he scary again? Robin flinched backward at a sudden memory of lightening.

"Well, the dude that was sitting with you, his name is Jason Grace. Still not clear what went down at the Gotham transfer station by the way. Oh and I gotta tell you about Piper too, Piper Grace. She is seriously hot but I guess it's kind of bad bro mojo to say that. Like, if you were telling me Aunt Iris was hot, I'd be like gross! So apparently, when Jason's mom moved to America she was involved in the entertainment industry so she changed her name from Graconi? I'm probably pronouncing it wrong. Sorry. So anyway, she changed her last name to Grace for the silver screen. So John and Mary well apparently their birth name was Graysoni too... I'm sorry Rob I have no idea how to pronounce it. Anyway, they did the Americanization thing with the name too. They changed their name to well, duh that one's obvious. You know your own name. That reminds me of that song, 'Name Game,' Mary, Mary bo-bary banana-fana fo-fary.. anyway so John and Beryl Gray-whatever were brother and sister. Beryl is Jason's mom."

The look of vacant confusion remained on Robin's face. Maybe if KF didn't keep interrupting his own story with other stories? Umm.. so dad's sister's kid, "...cousin?"

Kid Flash looked annoyed. This was simple. Why wasn't Robin getting it? "Your dad John was really your uncle. He and Mary were doing a solid for your real parents when they disappeared days after your birth. Jason and Piper are your birth parents."

The look of utter confusion had only settled more firmly on Robin's face.

"Oh, and I forgot the demigod thing. Jason is a son of Jupiter, Roman Sky God! Piper is a daughter of Aphrodite Greek Goddess of Love! Seriously dude, your mom is drool worthy and yes I really had to do the deep voice thing when saying their names. Like doesn't it sound cool, JASON SON OF JUPITER, Jupiter, jupiter... That's my echo effect. Cool huh?"

Robin yawned. Kid Flash was spewing some weird nonsensical garbage but if KF was here, he was safe. His current identity was confirmed as Robin. Good enough for now. He was seriously exhausted still so he closed his eyes.

Kid Flash rubbed his face in frustration. "... and you're asleep again and you didn't register a word I just said. Great! Why'd they pick me for this job?"

The door to the room opened a crack and Super Boy looked in shaking his head at Kid Flash. "I think you were supposed to get someone to evaluate him medically not whatever that was."

Kid Flash gave Superboy an annoyed glare. "It's his life and this is all big important stuff."

"Serious concussion, coma, experimental medicine?" Superboy shot back. "For the record you made ZERO sense. You were interrupting, your interruptions. So his name is Robin Grace? Batman's going to be ticked you weren't more discrete."

"Stop listening at doors dude," Kid Flash was pouting in an annoyed fashion.

Superboy came over trying to gently re-wake Robin. "Robin? Open your eyes."

Robin opened his eyes slowly focusing on Superboy. "Werz Ba-man?"

"Kid Flash is getting the doctor. Talk to Batman on my comm."

Robin tried to fumble with the comm but he couldn't get his fingers to work. Superboy took it from him and had the Watch Tower put him through to Batman. "Batman, he is awake and was asking for you. Medical support hasn't been in to assess him yet." Superboy passed the communicator unit back to Robin.

"Robin?"

"Ba-man."

"Status report," spoke Batman.

Batman had that funny tone he got when he desperately wanted to be Bruce and not the dark indomitable vigilante of the night. "Ligh-ning an gold dust... The pries-t speaks Rom. Teefth, fire hair, and bat wings. Not Batgirl. Some-ne else bad too." Robin struggled to make sense. Ever so slowly he was able to enunciate better.

Batman was currently Bruce. He had been scrambling to arrange relief efforts in Gotham. Most of the heavy hitters were back in Arkham. His office door was locked and he had the voice modulator activated on his comm unit to create the Batvoice. Dick was talking, responding on topic even if he sounded disjointed and confused. He recognized the Batman voice and had enough mental acuity to call him Batman and not Bruce and attempt to relate information relevant to the recent incident. The medicine was working.

Diana had been invaluable. They had been dealing with two intertwined pantheons of gods and demigods. The Greek gods, Diana was an expert on (technically she was a minor Greek god) but the Roman aspect of Zeus also known as Jupiter was involved too. There were prophecies. There were supernatural monsters. Robin had been rushed to what was essentially a safe zone called Camp Half Blood by well meaning people believing themselves to be Dick's parents. No one was sure just what Dick was or if any of the rules of demigods applied to him but he was safe from the monsters there.

Bruce hated dealing with mystical organizations. No one knew how to apply scientific method. Idiots that told him because the gods willed it or because it's magic when he asked why, were infuriating. Richard's situation was outside of what the demigod society normally dealt with so no one knew how to proceed when he needed emergency medical care. Batman and Kid Flash had intervened when indecision threatened Dick's life.

The ambulance crash caused additional concussion trauma plus a narcotic overdose on top of already severe injuries. The demigods had a medicine called Ambrosia that could heal nearly any injury but Ambrosia was deadly poison to mortals. If Ambrosia could not be administered, monsters or not, Dick would have needed to be brought back out of the safe zone and taken to a traditional medical facility. His injuries were life threatening.

Was Dick too mortal for the medicine? Did demigod plus demigod equal demigod even though the pantheons and gods were different? Bruce knew enough about genetics to stop them from making assumptions and propose relevant if rudimentary testing. Batman was suspicious by nature. He would need irrefutable proof to be convinced Jason and Piper Grace were really Richard's biological parents. Wonder Woman insisted that the story checked out. Batman had Robin's blood work and genetics on file. His boy was not a meta human. Wonder Woman tried to explain that the Myst prevented conclusions based on traditional science from being reliable.

Kid Flash and a young woman by the name of Annabeth did the lab work for Batman. The more complex the test, the more likely the results would be obscured by Myst. Annabeth as a demigod was more resistant to Myst confusion. They devised a simple blood test mixing micro solutions of Ambrosia with blood and documenting the results.

They tested Artemis's blood. (The girl not the god. Her name had caused confusion and delay. The samples had to be re-labelled M.G. for Mortal Girl. Apparently the entire camp had called her M.G. since the labelling fiasco.)

They tested R's blood. (Richard or Robin with a life in the balance, Kid Flash ignored the identity issue with the multi-function R.)

The tested Piper, R's Greek demigod mother's blood.

Finally they tested Jason, R's Roman/Greek demigod father's blood. (Don't even ask why Jason wasn't considered completely Roman. It was complicated. Even Wonder Woman had given up trying to explain it and started saying "Because the Gods willed it so.")

All the blood samples ignited if the quantity of Ambrosia was too high. M.G.'s blood ignited even when exposed to trace amounts of Ambrosia. R tolerated approximately 10 % of the dosage of the either of the two demigods. Jason tolerated slightly more than Piper.

Ambrosia had to be given orally for positive effects. They diluted it with water to reduce the likelihood of contact burns, administered it through a feeding tub and watched with baited breath. Richard spiked a fever of 106 with the first dose but it didn't kill him and within a few hours there was notable healing. They reduced the dosage level and waited. They'd been warned that Ambrosia tended to cause a "healing sleep." Doctor Leslie Thompkins whom Batman had been conferencing with hadn't liked that term used at the same time as coma. They'd been waiting and hoping.

It was day four and Dick had gone from completely unresponsive to pretty much cheesy TV quality instant wake up. Superboy confirmed that the fractured collar bone had healed but the ankle would need more time. Judging from the bone injuries alone that sounded like approximately a week of healing per day. There was no more blood in the urine and the burns were all new tender skin already.

Bruce wanted to reassure Dick but he'd only just awoken and no doubt had no idea what was coming. "Robin everyone is on your side. I can't be there right now. Would you like Agent A to come? Wonder Woman won't let anyone treat you poorly. The team has been taking shifts to make sure you're guarded. Kid Flash and Superboy refused to leave. To anyone listening, the Batman voice changer didn't really make it sound like Batman was talking.

"You won't take care of yourself unless Agent A stays with you," replied Robin slowly.

Conner turned away to give them an illusion of privacy but he smiled at little because Robin had said something that made sense and showed complex thought. He was going to be okay. Bruce hidden away in his office gave a grin of triumph and fist pumped the air. No one could see him.

"Get better," ordered Batman disconnecting. Bruce had been surviving on very little sleep trying to get Gotham under control. He'd been so worried about Dick that when he did lay down, sleep eluded him. Commissioner Gordon and Child Protective Services whom Bruce normally didn't have great experiences with had assured him that even if these people were Dick's biological parents, the change of custody had been illegal and Richard was still his ward. Legalities aside Dick was out of his reach right now. If he left the protected little camp where he was hidden, only Wonder Woman stood between him and enemies imperceptible to human sight.

Officially the police were searching for his ward. Bruce hadn't really appreciated it when his secretary had suggested "They should put Richard's picture on the milk cartons because that's what they do. Isn't it Mr. Wayne?" Bruce had frowned and clenched his fists so hard the staples in the profit and loss report he held dug into his hand.

The next day or two was a little fuzzy to Robin. He didn't really have a good concept of time. The feeding tube was removed and Wonder Woman fed him broth lightly doused with Ambrosia until he was steady enough to feed himself. It tasted heavenly but always put him to sleep for hours then he'd wake in a feverish haze that was slow to fade. He'd be conscious and coherent for about an hour then he'd be presented with another bowl of broth.

"You've called me Auntie Diana since you were eight. I had no idea it was the literal truth," she teased gently with a smile. "Zeus breathed life into me. Father is probably the correct term. Jupiter is the Roman incarnation of Zeus. He's your grandfather. Are you ready yet to meet your parents?"

"I'd prefer to be well enough to stand on my own. I want to hear from them where they've been the last twelve years," answered Robin.

Diana nodded. It wasn't an unreasonable request. Even if his parents had acted in his best interests she understood why he wasn't ready to trust them. Neither Princess Diana of Themyscira, Daughter of Hippolyta, a Greek goddess in her own right, nor any of the team had any intention of letting Robin's parents anywhere near him until he was ready.

The team was seriously ticked at the half blood community. The high handed way they had treated Robin was completely unacceptable. Robin was a valued member of the team and no one messed with him. You don't just steal a kid from his friends and the only family he's ever known. He'd been vulnerable; unconscious and badly injured. They understood that the intent had been to protect Robin but really what were they, chopped liver? Robin had people that could protect him no matter how overwhelming the danger.

Having a Greek goddess with the team when they showed up at Camp Half Blood had opened doors. Jason and Piper hadn't been pleased to just step aside and return care of "the boy" to the team but with a ticked off Goddess asking mostly nicely and everyone obviously primarily concerned with "the boy's" well being, Jason and Piper had eventually been forced to back down.

First, Piper had tried to convince Wonder Woman and the Team that leaving "their child" in his parent's care was best for everyone.

Chiron shuffled his hooves uncomfortably. This would all sound less hostile and more friendly if they had a name to work with but both sides were really reluctant to commit to a name.

Wonder Woman fingering her golden lasso snarled out, "As **charming** as your **suggestion** may be. I suggest you quiet your little speech before I rip out your tongue. I will not be compelled!"

Even the man/pony/centaur Chiron who seemed to run the camp had sided with Princess Diana aka Wonder Woman. "Jason, Piper, you'll alienate your own son. These people are the only family and friends he's ever known."

A middle aged satyr Coach Hedge Gleeson and Superboy who had ended up in a chest puffing shout down were both disappointed by the peaceful resolution. Superboy smashed a boulder in two and punted one of the halves into the lake in anger to which Coach Gleeson smirked in a snarky fashion. "Not half bad cupcake."

"Don't call me cupcake!" roared Superboy.

"You want a piece of this?" bellowed Coach Hedge thumping his chest and swinging a baseball bat aggressively. His rotund belly jiggled all through his posturing.

Kaldur rubbed his face in frustration.

Leo who got back to camp just before the Superheros got there at this point interrupted, "Um.. when you lot are finished with the whatever this is. Do you think I could get a few autographs?"

"Seriously Leo?" asked Jason.

"What? Wonder Woman represents! How can you not want her autograph? You know your kid is like the coolest mini hero of all time. I saw news footage this once when he was grade school aged and he was doing parkour across the city with this Tarzan rope thing he could shoot out and there was this scary clown with a bazooka and the kid was all flips and 'nah, nah can't catch me,' and stuff was exploding and he saved this little girl and.."

"SHUT UP LEO!"

 **Batman may be a little out of character but in his defense this would push just about every button he has. I don't know how it happened but this chapter seemed to insist on being written in reverse. The stuff that happens first comes at the end, so weird.**


	6. Robin Grace

To say Robin was pleased to leave bed, have a nice shower and dress in a freshly pressed uniform, sent with love from Alfred was an understatement. The casts and bandages were off. His eyes focused properly. He made as much sense as a conversationalist as he ever had. (There were still frequent complaints about butchery of the English language) There wasn't even a headache. He still had a slight limp but he was ready to step away from supernatural healing even if it was more than 10 times faster than natural healing and far more effective. It didn't even look like the burns were going to scar.

His team was a little nervous about it. He'd been at death's door less then a week ago but as long as no one dosed him with more ambrosia, he was pretty sure he was ready to start training again. Auntie Diana said that for a full demigod, the supernatural healing effects were far more dramatic and the side effects not nearly as severe. Predictably, it had been Robin who had refused further ambrosia. He wanted to know if he was well without an ambrosia fever clouding his judgment.

"Dude you look kind of sickly, golden and sparkly and I don't mean that in a good way," commented Kid Flash as Robin sneaked out the back door of the main house. "You look kind of Twilight sparkly vampire like."

"Ambrosia is poison K.F. It's not really meant for consumption even by the likes of me. Whatever I am," snorted Robin.

"You're Robin," clarified Superboy. His tone made it clear that Conner thought he'd completely sorted that matter.

"Is there somewhere I can go to limber up a bit?" asked Rob.

"There's a training grounds but it's always occupied," offered Artemis.

"We've secured a discrete clearing in the woods," explained Kaldur. "I suppose these folks are your kin but I for one am not ready to have them watching us train."

"'Blood relations' and 'worth the time of day' can be two different things Rob. Be careful okay?" suggested Artemis.

Robin pushed himself to test his current status. Everyone helped put him through his paces but at the same time everyone was pulling their punches. No one was too sure of his condition. It was like playing an old familiar video game starting from scratch. They worked their way through the easy levels. After a couple of hours, Kaldur put a stop to things and asked Robin for a self assessment. Auntie Diana had been watching for the last hour.

"You look better than you did first thing this morning," commented Kid Flash. "Not so creepy sparkly. I think you're sweating some of it out of your system. Can we get some real food? None of this magical flying through the air stuff. I think you'd loose the sparkles completely if you had some real food in you. Aren't you hungry dude?"

"Magical flying through the air food?" asked Robin finishing the last of his water.

"I made cookies," offered Megan. She was sat by a campfire with a roll of tinfoil and an empty Pillbury Dough pack of freezer cookie dough. She looked over at Wonder Woman wondering if it was against her warrior code to practice domestic hobbies like baking.

Robin grinned delighted. "Megs did you make campfire cookies on a stick?" he asked with a cheerful laugh.

It was time to face the music. Robin's parents had been wanting to talk to him since he first regained consciousness.

"Oh dude, come on no," protested Kid Flash. Sometimes Robin had the social common sense of a walrus in a herd of horses. Robin had stealthed off to spy on his parents.

Kaldur looked at Wonder Woman but she just shook her head. "I'm not rescuing his parents from Robin being Robin," she commented. "By the way he'll be using the name Robin Grace while in this camp. It is as close to keeping identity secrets protected as the situation allows." Much discussion had gone into the name with Wonder Woman, Kid Flash, Jason, Piper and Batman. The end decision was that if Richard was under threat, he was best protected as Robin so the name Richard Grayson was carefully tucked away for another time. Thankfully no one but Jason and Piper knew what they'd named their son. The name Grace was out in the open already.

Robin stared. Fauns or satyrs noted Robin? They didn't look to be small forest creatures, playful and cute like Robin had imagined they would. They mostly looked like, kind of sweaty, unkempt college kids with goat's feet and horns. That girl was leading a pegasus and okay a lot of swords, spears and old school weapons. There was a group of teens at a forge working on a mechanical cat and a they were fixing a bed that looked like it had been designed to deliver the sleeper right to the breakfast table. It kept dumping one of the orange shirted campers face first into her oatmeal bowl?

Robin found his father Jason near a marble mausoleum with pillars in front and polished bronze doors.

"Robin!" called out the blond not a priest.

Robin reluctantly came out of hiding.

"Sorry. My father is lord of the sky. The wind was excited that you came to visit."

Robin looked around for the Piper woman who was supposed to be his mother.

"Hello, I hope you're better," someone whom Robin assumed to be Piper called out. She went to stand too close to Jason ... well she was standing in what Batman called, the must be family zone, of Jason's personal space so Robin assumed this was Piper.

Richard in his Robin gear looked at the dark haired woman who was his mother. She was pretty. Her complexion was a lot like his own. He looked at his father. The resemblance was in the eyes. Dick had never realized just how striking the Grayson blue was until he saw it looking back at him. Dick unconsciously stepped back a little. "Hi."

Robin had been told his mother and father knew both of his identities. "If you're my parents, where were you? Things weren't good for me for a long time. They were good now. I'm not little orphan Annie. I haven't been dreaming of someone who abandoned me coming back and changing their minds." Robin couldn't bring himself focus on Alfred's carefully instructed social behaviour training but he tried. He ran through the checklist in his head. He corrected his body position to be less threatening, he stepped forward so that he was in the conversation zone. He made eye contact but didn't hold eye contact uncomfortably long. And now he was failing to pay attention to the reply. Sometimes ADHD sucked.

Piper answered, "You were born early. There was this prophecy and well gods really don't like being in a state of flux." She looked at Jason.

His back ramrod straight like a soldier facing an unpleasant duty Jason smoothed a hand through his hair then started to speak. "Jupiter or Zeus is the main problem. Gods seem to form an identity based on the worship of the masses. The thing is, Gods are not exclusively a part of the mortal world so if there are millions of dead and living persons of Greek-ish persuasion and millions of dead and living persons of Roman-ish persuasion a god.. ehh."

Wonder Woman interrupted when Jason started to falter, "A god becomes faceted. He or she can simultaneously be more that one entity based not just on their own inherent core but based on what their worshippers believe and want them to be."

Robin smiled slightly when Wonder Woman showed up.

Jason nodded. Piper took over the explanation. "Not long before you were born there was a war fought over it. You are a union of the Roman and Greek facets. And you might not be a demi-god but you aren't an ordinary mortal either."

"Mm..mom was Christian," protested Robin in distress.

Wonder Woman rescued everyone from that panic, "Robin, life, death and faith are bigger than we know. No one here is saying this is the only truth. That's kind of what your parents didn't want people fighting about. As far as I know, love will always connect you to those you love and goodness is good. It doesn't count for nothing because someone gave it a different name."

Robin swallowed. He could believe in love and good for now and umm... not drown in the details. Batman had studied under a lot of different religious leaders and he was smart. Robin wished he was here.

"So, we were trying to find a tool to hide you from this until you were bigger and stronger. We kind of ended up as statues for a while," explained Jason.

"11 years," clarified Piper. "Friends of ours, Leo, Percy and Annabeth returned us to flesh and blood. Everyone looks so old and we didn't get to see you grow up. You're so big. You were this tiny thing. It's not fair but your alive. I can't say how thankful I am for that."

"Do they know everything about me too? Wait, I'm safe are you calling Batman a tool." asked Robin really awkwardly trying to lighten the tension.

Piper and Wonder Woman smirked a little. The Piper continued the explanation. "Annabeth was the one who figured it out. She's clever. She's a daughter of Athena. Clues are sort of her thing."

Jason spoke up trying to put Richard at ease, "Leo's a son of Hephaestus the master of the forge. He made you a Greek Weapon that he thought would suit you. He's a fan of the Boy Wonder thing. Hazel, a daughter of Pluto, thought your Roman side needed representation. This is from her."

Robin reached forward to accept the small brown paper wrapped gifts, unwrapping them warily. "A bronze fidget spinner and a black C-cell battery?"

Jason smirked a rather familiar smirk. "Well you could just play with the fidget spinner or squeeze it here and here."

Robin did as he was told and suddenly he was holding a slightly circular bird styled shuriken. It felt perfectly balanced.

"Throw it" encouraged Piper with a smile.

Robin took aim at a tree and threw it? It flew true. He looked back at Jason and Piper, then started walking to the tree to retrieve it. Where did it go?

Auntie Diana, Jason and Piper looked amused and were smiling in anticipation.

"Look in your pocket," encouraged Jason.

Umm thought Robin, he didn't have any pockets, well the belt pouches were kind of like pockets. He reached into the one that normally held birdarangs and ... ? It's back in my belt? He pulled it out again looking at it then walked over to the tree. He could see the scar in the tree where it had impacted. Impressive.

"Celestial Bronze can be used to hunt but it won't hurt a sentient creature unless it's a monster," explained Piper. Wonder Woman nodded.

"No matter how you feel about all of this, please keep the weapons," encouraged Wonder Woman. "You need something effective against the kind of monsters that are threatening you now."

The battery expanded into a staff which could also separate into escrima sticks. "We thought you could channel lightening through this because, well I could but given that I almost fried my own son tossing lightening at someone who was after you, I don't think that's going to work for you," explained Jason.

"You just make lightening. Pfft there's some lightening," asked Robin.

"Not exactly. I ask for it and your grandfather gives it to me. It doesn't hurt me though," Jason explained. "But... it's tiring. Nothing is free."

The powers and weapons thing was easier to talk about than the family and what happens now thing. Robin was glad for the distraction.

Jason took hold of one end of the staff and nodded to Robin. "Go on. Ask him," encouraged Jason. "I'll feel it but you won't hurt me."

Robin wasn't exactly sure how to ask so he just thought a general ... please?...

Jason chuckled a bit pulling back abruptly as a small electrical charge arced through to him. "Sorry, it tickles. It's not exactly lightening but it's not nothing."

"What's it made of? The staff is a different material than the shuriken. It's black."

"Stygian iron. That will work on mortal and immortals. Because it's not an edged weapon it shouldn't absorb life force the way a blade would, but monsters will take longer to reform if you take them out with this. Talk to Hazel about it. She'll know better. That weapon has a history but I don't know it. Hazel just said it was Yours, with a capital Y, in a meant for you kind of way."

Wonder Woman asked Robin to pull up the video footage of the recent cliff incident. "Robin as a general rule don't use your wrist computer unless you really need it. We'll have to figure out how to shield it from monsters first. It will attract them."

Jason and Piper watched the fall footage. "Can you explain it?" asked Wonder Woman.

"Well, the Myst has thoroughly messed with the video so I can't be exactly sure what happened but his Grandfather is Lord of the Sky. I think it's safe to say that as long as you possess a will to live and you're out in the open air in his domain, you need not fear death by falling. I'm not saying falling won't hurt, but I don't think he'll let you die," Jason offered. "I can call the winds." Winds swirled around them and Jason was lifted into the air.

"Come on," encouraged Jason. "Try it. Ask the wind."

Robin's cape ruffled in the wind a little but that was it. Robin felt kind of silly. "If anyone needs help blowing out birthday candles, I got it covered," he joked.

"My inheritance is charm speak," offered Piper. "I was in my mid-teens before I even knew I was doing it. Sometimes, I'd ask for something I really wanted and even if it wasn't reasonable, people would give me what I asked for. It got me in a lot of trouble because charm speak is a power that fades. In a little while I'd have this angry person wanting their stuff back. I couldn't understand why they'd changed their minds. I didn't understand I was sort of temporarily overriding their free will." Piper sounded uneasy about her power.

"That's what you did in Gotham when you took custody of me. It's like stealing," spoke Robin his eyes a little harder than normal.

"We, I didn't know any other way to get you to safety fast. Explaining Greek gods and monsters, even given who your foster father is, didn't seem likely to get us anywhere fast," Piper answered.

Robin shuffled uncomfortably. He didn't like the idea that people might have done things for him because he'd been overriding their free will. He thought to Wally and Roy teasing about his freaking puppy dog eyes. He thought of them saying why did we even go along with his crazy idea when he'd gotten them in some sort of ill conceived trouble. His chest felt tight and uncomfortable.

"It was nice meeting you," spoke Robin backing up. Dick fled. There was no more delicate way to put it. He didn't run but he'd kind of hit his, enough to absorb at once, limit. He hadn't meant to be rude but he suspected he had been. In the absence of Bruce, Dick went to Wally.

"Do you want to talk about it?" asked Kid Flash while stuffing his face with hotdogs.

"Can we talk about the zombie apocalypse instead?"

"Sure dude." answered Wally who was curious but recognized five seconds from melt down for what it was.

Eventually Robin was ready to talk but in true Robin fashion they got distracted talking about electrified escrima sticks and the auto-returning birdarangs.

Kid Flash dug up a electricity meter and they started testing the voltage and current generated.

Wonder Woman found them goofing around with testing. "Kid Flash? You need to stop now."

"Hey why? We were just having fun."

"It's not the escrima sticks that make the electrical charge. Robin?"

Robin who was ghost white having been sending electrical charges through the stick non-stop for about an hour, looked up with a guilty expression on his face.

"This takes strength from you to do," warned Diana. "Pay attention to what your body is telling you."

"Nothing is free. Jason warned me." Robin went to stand up and pretty near keeled over. "I think I'm going to have a nap."

Kid Flash helped him off looking guilty. "Dude you want something to eat?"

"As long as it's not soup."

 **I've tried to keep Robin's reactions to Jason and Piper believable. Some of the things coming out of Robin's mouth would be quite hurtful and I'm aware of that. Everyone has limits. What do you think? Is he in character. Is he too mean, too nice? It's an impossible situation for everyone.**


	7. Oh Brother

Kaldur stiffly straightened up as he reported back to Batman in the Bioship where there was a display screen. Wonder Woman was standing beside him to contribute her viewpoint.

"Robin appears to be ready for duty. He is still favouring one leg slightly and his stamina is slightly reduced but his physical condition is up to what has previously been considered mission standard," reported Kaldur.

"Diana?"

"He has at least met them but he is definitely holding them at arms length. He is wary and unready to form attachments to them. They gifted him with demi-god style weaponry as I am sure he reported to you."

"Chiron wants him to participate in some of the Demi-god training games to assess his skill set," added Kaldur.

"Is he or is he not a meta human," asked Batman. "If someone slaps an inhibitor collar on him is it going to do anything?"

Wonder Woman bristled at the question. The only time she'd seen Robin even slightly playful since this thing had started was when she'd walked in on him and Kid Flash playing with electricity. He was generating taser level charges Kid Flash had explained. This whole thing had turned Robin's world inside out.

Zues/Jupiter had never been able to control his manly urges. Half the world was probably distantly related to the philanderer.

"An inhibitor caller can be set up to rob a person of almost any natural gift including free will. They do not exclusively hinder meta humans," snapped Wonder Woman. "Robin has always been a gifted athelete, an inspiring and intelligent individual and that will not change. His grandfather is currently indulging him with access to small electrical charges. He's not as allergic to ambrosia as most people are and sometimes his grandfather has caught him in the air rather than allowing him to fall," she added.

Batman's body language gave nothing away. He dryly added. "I need to talk to Robin alone."

Batman explained about the rioting and gloating villians who were on top of the world. They'd killed Robin. "Dick, I need to tell you what I did. Lock the door."

"Okay."

Batman pulled back the cowl. "Gotham needs her heroes invincible. Everyone saw you die but you didn't die however you are unavailable. I did something. It might have been foolish. I am not sure. There was this kid, a gutsy kid. He was stealing the Batmobile's tires. I took him in. He's agreed to pretend to be you. He's only ten but he's tall so he's about your height. We dyed his red hair black. I don't mean for him to get wrapped up in this. He's just going to show Gotham a Robin because legends can't die. I don't intend on sending him back out on the streets after though. That would be reprehensible."

Dick didn't say anything. He just nodded kind of awkwardly and plastered a fake smile on his face.

"Dick?"

"I'm sorry Bruce."

"Dickie what in the world are you apologizing for?" asked Bruce cringing as he heard himself call Dick, Dickie. Richard hated that.

"For dying in the media and my parents and I didn't mean to be a meta and for whatever the heck is going on with Gotham and the storms. The gods have spoken, apparently that's all my fault too."

"No. Just No! Not your fault. Electrocute the crap out of whoever is really behind this! Do you hear?"

Dick gave a small nod with a small smile. "What's his name?"

"Jason. Jason Todd."

 **I realize this is short, kind of nothingish and grumpy but I'm sick and don't feel like writing. Now, if you'll excuse me I'm going to the walk-in clinic. I think I've got Bronchitis.**


	8. Run Robin Run

**My twelve year old boss insisted this had to go out before I worked on anything else in my normal writing rotation because the last chapter was supposed to contain this. Still not at a 100 percent so the editing might be weak. Have fun.**

Jason and Piper sat in the dining pavilion. Biologically they were in their late teens. Technically they were in there early thirties. Half bloods lived young because there really weren't a lot of them who grew up. Jason held Piper's hand. "He'll come around." They looked fondly at Leo. They'd been statues for a while. Leo'd been dead for a while. It hadn't slowed him down though and despite now being one of the older campers, he sure didn't behave like it.

Leo was grinning like a maniac and talking about the weapon he'd made The Robin, of Batman and Robin! He was fanboying like a school girl meeting a rock star. He had a group of the younger campers around him and they were all going on about something. He was the preverbial kid at heart.

"JASON, PIPES! Can we do something to make your kid know we're happy he's here?" called Leo. "The lot of them, him and his friends are all mopey and wary and hey," Leo lowered his voice and plunked himself down beside Piper. "They're acting like they've been kidnapped to camp super villian and I get it but they're good people and we're good people and I want The Robin to think I'm all that. Is that to much to ask?"

Piper who'd been moping was smiling at Leo. "Do your best. I feel like I completely crashed and burned."

Leo set his own finger to flame holding it up like a torch and wiggling his eyebrows with a rogish grin. "If your going to burn. You've got to be hot stuff!" he answered playfully.

The camp was running a gauntlet tonight in the combat arena. Robin had agreed to participate at Auntie Diana's encouragement. Jason and Piper were trying. Jason who seemed to have made a little progress came alone and sat down to make himself less intimidating. He, with political politeness, greeted Artemis too. She was with Robin right then and quite frankly glaring and sharpening arrows the whole time.

"The gauntlet is a race involving combat and obstacles. It doesn't involve powers. Many demi-gods have soft skill inheritances rather than mystical ones. They might be extra artistic, wise or talented with select weapons. There are some excellent archers at camp," explained Jason nodding to Artemis. "In our training games, mystical gifts like: shape shifting, electricity use, speaking with animals, those skills are put aside for use at other times."

"The League and YJ team often train the same way," acknowledged Robin. "Meta power training is done but often in secret or with a number of special controls in place."

Jason nodded. "The use of force is expected but no one should be crippling or seriously injuring other campers. If you aren't taking a few knocks and bruises during training there is no way you'd be ready for what tends to get thrown at demigods."

"But I'm not really a demigod am I?" protested Robin.

Jason sighed. "Don't get too caught up in the name. You have godly gifts. There are prophecies around you and the monsters don't like you. Your mom and our friend Annabeth and Chiron were having this discussion earlier today. Demigod in terms of word roots, literally means less than a full god. Aqualad was explaining you have a thing for prefixes?"

Artemis smirked, for a moment forgetting to scowl. Robin let a small grin escape in her direction.

Jason's explanation continued. "In the Roman camp there were decendants. The Romans have accepted demigods born of minor gods for years. More of them grow to adulthood. Camp half-blood, for a long time focused almost completely on those who had the misfortune to be born of major gods because they were hunted so aggressively they wouldn't survive without rescue."

"Am I going to see prejudice because I don't have a godly parent?" asked Robin.

"This camp is full of children, preteens and teens from turbulent backgrounds. They unite against external threats but also squabble like cats and dogs internally. Expect to have to earn respect," admitted Jason. "Doing well in the gauntlet would help."

"He's so stiffly formal he reminds me of Aqualad," Artemis admitted when Jason left. "I don't see how he could be related to you."

Robin shrugged. "He seemed honest."

"You going to kick some demigod butt in this gauntlet thing?" asked Artemis.

"Jason's the first demigod we've met today that hasn't called you MG or Mortal Girl. I think you should kick some demigod butt," answered Robin with a grin.

Artemis laughed. "I will admit bird boy, I might be rooting for you for completely immature reasons."

The training games had the energy and intensity of a european soccer game or maybe the american superbowl although the crowd was obviously smaller. There were flags and banners and war paint. People were cheering their cabins. The evening started out with skill exibitions from the younger campers and songs and cheers led. The gauntlet was the final event. Chiron trotted out calling for silence. "Cabins name your champions! Tonight we will go in alphabetical order."

Aphrodite's cabin cheered and Piper lept up with a hoot and a holler! "Wha hoo! We claim Robin Grace!"

"I object! It's supposed to go by cabin number! I'm the only other person in Zues's cabin! I don't want to go against my own son!" protested Jason looking like he'd just been blind sided.

Robin stood and looked from parent to parent seeming rather amused.

"Aphrodite just has one requirement of you," called Piper with a smile.

"Zues is the father of the gods. I say he belongs here," insisted Jason flabbergasted.

"It's rude to interrupt," teased Robin.

"As I was saying," grinned Piper. "Aphrodite just has one requirement of you. If you're going to win you have to do it in style!"

Robin with his arms crossed and a rather playful grin now on his face walked over to stand infront of the Aphrodite group. He gave a bow with a flourish to the other campers. He smirked and shrugged back to his father.

There were about ten other challengers. Not every cabin put forth a champion. The Apollo group was very loud. Jason at the end rolled his eyes and stepped forward to represent Zues.

Robin cackled happily and asked if Artemis might compete on behalf of her name sake. The Artemis cabin was honorary, Artemis being the virgin goddess.

Chiron called out "Polli Kala! Very Well!"

Only cabin champions had been called forth. Though there were plenty of camper smaller than Robin, he was certainly the shortest camper of the champions.

The first section of the gauntlet was a narrow path, between campers with staffs and blunted swords. The second section a feild of traps, mud, barbed wire, logs, tires, a climbing wall and trench of fire. The last section was a spinning tower of traps with a flag at the top.

A trumpet blew.

Robin and Artemis waited a moment for the cannon fodder to begin the path between the beaters.

Robin with a leap and a flip took the high road flipping on and over other contestants and beaters alike. He yanked a staff away from someone at the end of his acrobatic run. Frankly a few contestants and beaters stopped and gapped for a few moments. Artemis used that opportunity to run and skid under most of the section blocking and fighting her way through the last of it. Distraction was something Robin excelled at.

"Thanks Boy Wonder," called Artemis with a tease.

The Ares champion had grabbed a sword and plowed through on brute strength.

Jason too had grabbed a sword but he'd fought his way free with some rather impressive sword work although his elbow was smarting from where someone had gotten him when he'd been distracted watching his son dance over the heads of his opposition with a cackle of glee and a flourish of his cape.

The crowded had errupted into opposing chants of :

"Na, na, na, na, na, na ROBIN!" and "Jiggle bells Batman smells Robin laid an egg,"

Leo and a huge gang of campers came out looking like they'd raided the local Walmart for cheesy Robin merchandise. There were campers in Batman and Robin halloween costumes, little campers in footy Robin or Batman brand pj's, campers in t-shirt, campers in swim shorts and towels worn like capes. There was a trio of girls from the Aphrodite cabin wearing bikinis with scaley green bottoms, red busty tops with the stylised R over one breast and silky yellow capes.

Kid Flash was staring at the bikini girls and kind of weakly waving in Robin's direction "...go Robin, ooh yeah, go Robin..."

Robin's staff disarmed traps, pole vaulted over mud. He launched it like a spear over the barbed wire section. There was a decorated flag line over the barbed wire field. He waited for Artemis who'd lagged slightly, having gone through the mud. When she caught up she cupped her hand for a grinning Robin who used her boost to fling himself up to the flag line. Next he hung upside down while she with a running jump up grabbed his hand. He swung her out over the barbed wire flipped right side up then built up enough momentum to send himself flying over the wire field.

Artemis got ahead of him while he was working up momentum. She stayed ahead of him over the log hurtles though the feild but the slowed down a little over the log balance section which ran in water.

The log balance section Robin danced through singing the log drivers waltz "That's where the log driver learns to step lightly!" His staff helped with balance.

You'd have thought the tires were Robin's backyard trampoline. He seemed to have forgotten it was a race and was calling out "Alley Oop! Boing Boing! Come on Arty! Let's go Party!"

Artemis couldn't help but laugh. Robin kept waiting for her to catch up. Team work got them over the climbing wall in seconds flat. Robin stopped to twirl his staff playfully at the top of the wall before flipping down. Artemis was seriously loosing her composure now.

Jason and the Ares camper had been playing catchup. They were bigger and stronger but slower by far.

Jason just stopped and started laughing. The other challengers plowed past him but he couldn't find it in himself to care. This wasn't challenging the Boy Wonder at all. He'd left them in the dust slowing down only enough to bring his friend along for fun. His son wasn't even out of breath.

The fire trench?

He gave his friend a vault assist over, then used his staff again. They two of them were at the base of the tower of traps the interior of which was loaded with campers trying to make things difficult but throwing last minute obstructions out to knock challengers down. It spun and thumped.

"Bye bye Arty," called Robin. Like it was nothing but a child's playset Robin flipped, grabbed, lept, did a double twist lay out, caught the sword the Ares' camper threw with one hand flinging it back to land right between the guy's legs, swing, duck, pulled, jumped, plucked a little flag, and bowed flamboyantly.

Several minutes later Artemis laughing pulled herself up beside him and high fived him.

"That whole course literally played to your strengths," she teased.

"Well there was not a single shadow in sight but there was lots of fun flipping, climbing and vaulting."

"Pretend you're tired?" Artemis teased.

"Aside from Greek mythology so he knows what he's facing. I don't know what I'm supposed to teach him," Chiron spoke to Wonder Woman. "What are his actual combat skills like. This was supposed to test combat too but he flippity doo'd past that part and was so far ahead of the competition he didn't run into any combat from his challengers."

"He'll need to learn more lethal measures. He has been trained to incapacitate only. That won't work against monsters," spoke Wonder Woman.

Robin just seemed to have noticed the Robin party going on down in the stands. He blushed.

"Come on Wonderbread. Let's go meet your fan club," Artemis teased.

"Now that's style!" proclaimed Piper excitedly kissing Robin on the cheek before realizing that she was probably being too forward.

He went completely red.

"I think it's time I introduced you to your biggest fan," called Jason. "Robin, this is Leo."

"GO BOY WONDER! ROBIN ROCKS!" Leo suddenly seemed to realize he was being introduced. "Uh... hi. I um.. I made the wing ding. Err bat-bird-er-rang Suri-ken? Uh bird shape and goes ding when it hits stuff in the workshop but that's from the amount of metal junk I leave lying around and wing ding, I just started calling it... Did you see how it could expand for boomerang action curving in the air and all?"

Robin took it out and offered it to Leo. "Why don't you show me?"

"So this is straight flight mode and push here and the shape changes a bit for curving action. It's not electrical so it's good in water but keep it clean." Leo was wearing a Robin T-shirt with his heavy leather tool belt over top, safety goggles pushed up on his forehead and Batman and Robin socks on his feet. Batman was the left sock, Robin was the right sock.

"It's incredible. Thank you," spoke Robin.

The YJ team was smiling.


	9. Prophecy thou art lame

**Reach for the golden hidden stars**

 **Descendant from a beautiful sky**

 **Union celebrated in unending**

 **Stolen to the death of the mighty**

 **The knot of the heavens sundered be**

"Is this obscurity absolutely necessary? Or are the Gods just all really passionate beatnik poetry lovers?" protested Robin with an annoyed set to his shoulders.

Jason started to snicker and Piper rolled her eyes.

Diana looking patient explained. "There are a couple of reasons for prophecy being ..."

"Like the Riddler's clues when he's been visiting Margeritaville?" protested Robin.

Chiron snorted. "Look kid, they're clues left for the right people for how to solve world threatening problems but generally only the right people have any hope of being successful so the obscurity helps stop the wrong persons from ending up killed, getting involved in something they have no right getting involved in."

Robin still looked dubious. "So you're trying to tell me that the mumbo jumbo doesn't result in misinterpretations that get people killed?"

Annabeth raise one eyebrow towards Chiron. Generations of children of Athena had died going after the Athena Parthenos before Annabeth had suceeded.

Robin wasn't finished ranting. "Clearly communicating expectations, mission parameters, locations and intel is vital. It's basic leadership. What gives?"

"The gods have limited interference rules to prevent all out war. The hints rather than clarity has a lot to do with that," explained Diana. "And potentially some of them just like to watch mortals overcome challenges because they find it amusing."

"Descendant from a beautiful sky seems to be you," spoke Piper. "Goddess of Love and Beauty is Aphodite, God of the Sky and Lord of Heaven is Zeus."

"Could Reach be the Reach and not just reaching for something?" asked Conner.

"Pardon?" asked Chiron.

"The Reach are aliens that have been causing trouble," clarified Aqualad.

"Oh, okay certainly! Proficy and double meanings go together like peanut butter and jelly."

"Stolen to the death of the mighty? So something that could kill Gods if it was stolen?" prompted Annabeth thinking outloud.

Everyone was silent for a while thinking or mostly silent. Kid Flash had a Sonic the Hedgehog lunch box full of snacks and was working on second or third lunch. He kept commenting on the food because thoughtful silence wigged him out. "Goldfish crackers yum. Hey Aqualad I'm eating your buddies. Noooo!" he teased.

Aqualad rolled his eyes.

"I wonder what's in this wrap? Eh,.. tastes like chicken, but doesn't everything just.."

"Will you stop talking with your mouth full!" scowled Artemis, grinding her teeth.

"KF! Wait!" Robin snatched the apple out of Kid Flash's lunch box and sliced it in half with a Batarang. He held it up to show the star shape the seeds inside the apple made.

"I thought immortal golden apples was Norse mythology," protested Artemis.

"There are apples referenced in a lot of cultures. Greek, Roman, Norse, Christian, Irish..." spoke Robin.

"There are two greek golden apple references that come to mind," spoke Annabeth. "Both have to do with unions or marriages, Zeus, Hera, and Aphrodite. The Golden Apple of Discord and the Apples of Hesperides."

"Perhaps someone could enlighten the group on the two myths so that we can evaluate this properly," suggested Aqualad.

Robin volunteered, "Well the Apple of Discord was this golden apple with the words 'to the fairest' engraved on it. This major troll Eris the Goddess of Strife and Discord, throws the apple into the crowd at this big fancy wedding right between Hera, Athena and Aphrodite, see? Everyone's all you know, 'hell to the no,' that apple's got my name on it Sister!"

"Well, that started one of the most epic cat fights of all time but finally the three goddesses tastefully discheveled of course, arms crossed, feet tapping, let the dust settle and every last one of them is staring at Zeus. Okay mister I'm the boss, make the call. Who's apple is it? Zeus is all, 'Do I look like a blinking idiot? I don't want anywhere near that kind of action,' so he points at this sheppard kid who's supposed to be pretty wise and declares that guy's calling it."

"Well, the sheppard kid, who's name is Paris is standing there like a deer in the headlights all, 'who me?'. At this point, Hera decides to try and bribe the guy with power which sounds pretty awesome to Paris but then Athena decides to bribe him with a gift of incredible wisdom and battle strategy and Paris is going back and forth: door number one or door number two. By now he's completely forgotten about who's the fairest and it's all about the signing bonus then he gets this unfortunate little thought. He hasn't heard from Aphrodite. So he looks to the Goddess of Love and well... He's a teenager and a guy. So, lust and the promise of the hottest chick ever wins the day because unfortunately that's just how most teenage boys are wired. The hottest chick ever was Helen of Troy and the whole mess resulted in the Trogen war and the fall of Troy. I think Paris kicks it in the end."

Wonder Woman was staring at Robin looking kind of horrified just how he'd told the ancient tale.

Robin gave her kind of a sheepish look with a tentative smile of apology.

Jason, Piper and Annabeth were pretty near rolling on the ground laughing.

Chiron rolled his eyes and sighed. "Yeah, that is sort of what happened. Very colourfully told Robin. Would someone else like to share the story of the Apples of Hesperides?"

Princess Diana glared in everyone's general direction and summed up. "They were a wedding gift from Aphrodite to Zeus and Hera in celebration of their marriage. The golden apples grant immortality when eaten. They grow on a tree in the Garden of Hesperides. Heracles was tasked to steal them."

"Well," spoke Kid Flash. "That's not nearly as exciting as the last story but those apples probably fit the prophecy better. The Reach making a bunch of bad guys immortal with stolen wedding apples sounds like bad news."

"Sooo..." drawled Robin. "Is that it for the helpfulness of prophecy?" He looked predictably dubious.

"Herperides is in Portugal," offered Annabeth.

"So we head to Portugal and hope for the best?" asked Robin rather incredulous about the sketchy mission parameters.

Chiron, Jason, Piper, and Annabeth just kind of nodded resignedly.

"That's about the gist of it," admitted Jason. "You also need to decide who's going. Demigod quests are always pretty ... ehh"

"Just wander off in a general direction, play it by ear and hope for the best," spoke Piper a little bitterly.

Robin and Aqualad briefed Batman. Wonder Woman respectfully explained that once the quest began she would have to pull out because her status with the Greek gods required non-interference for political reasons. Things had settled down between the demigods and the team.

Batman wasn't exactly happy about that but he understood. Batman wanted to talk to Robin alone again.

The cowl was again removed. "Dick, there can't be two Robin's and Robin needs to be seen in Gotham right now."

Dick peeled off his mask looking confused. "What do you want me to do?" He unclasped his cape trying not to look hurt. It was very late and it had been a long day.

Bruce closed his eyes and heaved a heavy sigh. "Richard..."

A bolt of lightening shot from the sky through open hatch of the bio-ship and onto Robin. It turned the heads of the entire camp. The light was so bright that even across the display screen Bruce was forced to avert his eyes momentarily. It was alarming but Dick hadn't been consumed or hurt in anyway. He was standing where he'd been all along but now instead of red, black and yellow his costume was all black with a stylized imperial eagle on the chest in royal blue. Dick hurriedly put his mask back on as concerned friends and family rushed to see what had happened.

Batman's cowl was already on again when he growled out, "What happened?"

Jason, looking at Robin smiled. "He didn't have to do that but he did."

"Who? What?!" demanded Aqualad.

Wonder Woman was smiling. "Zeus claimed kinship to Robin," she explained.

"Looking smoking dude!" exclaimed Kid Flash.

With a soft gust of cologne, the outfit lost a little of it's imperial look, the cape turned into a flutter of yellow rose petals, the abs were accentuated, the kevlar tighted around the buttocks area and Robin hair fluffed and styled into a fashionable disheveled look. The mask restyled slightly to emphasize flattering cheekbones and a rogue-ish sort of devilishness.

"And Aphrodite added her two cents," laughed Piper.

"Is it improper that I think he looks hot?" M'gann asked Artemis blushing embarrassed.

Conner growled and Artemis smirked.

"Rob them abs are toned and I had no idea your cape was hiding that fine, fine caboose," Artemis teased.

Robin showing his age blushed furiously. "I don't think I'm quite old enough for this outfit."

"Yeah," agreed Piper with a huff of frustration. "Grandma has some odd ideas at times."

"Thanks Grandma!" called out Piper sarcastically. "My twelve year old son really wanted to look sexy!"

Artemis and M'gann giggled. Batman growled.


	10. Leo's Girlfriend

**The reviews after I posted the last chapter were all negative. It makes me wonder why I'm posting this and not just reading it to my 12 year old ADHD boss.**

 **Follow the proverb people. If you don't have anything nice to say... come on you know how it goes.**

 **Criticism can be constructive. Is yours?**

Batman assured Robin that his role as Robin was secure and that all this was temporary. Robin was still going by Robin, he just temporarily had a disguise. The Young Justice team retired for the night talking and planning. Batman was researching criminal activity in Portugal for them. Wonder Woman had left them with a list of websites that gave good mythical accurate information on Hercules, the Apples of Herperides and other related information. They'd regroup with the demigods in the morning then set out. If they were going on a major road trip arrangements had to be made. Most of the young heroes had been attending school in shifts, making trips home and trying to be in multiple places at once.

Jason, Piper, Leo and Annabeth sat around a campfire staring dully into the flames.

"How's Percy doing?" Jason asked Annabeth.

"Good. He'll be back soon but not before all this blows over likely," she responded.

"Thanks for all the research and the lab work and finding us, finding our son. Annabeth I don't know where to start. We owe you so much!" spoke Piper earnestly. There were tears in her eyes. Piper's hormones hadn't really had a chance to stabilize after childbirth. Frozen in stasis as a statue not a month after Rich... Robin had been born then awoken years later to a child half grown that was being distantly polite with her. Piper wanted to hit someone but there was a current lack of targets.

Annabeth waved it off as if to insist it was nothing but seeing Piper in tears she skooched over and draped an arm around Piper pulling her into a hug of comfort. Piper rested her head on Annabeth's shoulder still staring into the fire.

"Have you heard anything from Hazel, Nico, Frank or the other Romans?" asked Annabeth.

"No," answered Jason. "I was ready for the whole concept of a baby. I guess I had the better part of nine months to wrap my head around the idea but now he's nearly a teenager. He's a good kid and all but I don't know how to deal with the whole teenager concept. He doesn't need diapers, a bottle and a bedtime story. He's being friendly enough but it's obvious he'd rather just go back to Gotham and I find it hard to fault him for that. Batman was there for him. I look around camp and so many of the kids here have this angry sort of relationship with their godly parent. It's almost always for the same reason; the absent parent reason. Now we're in that roll and I promised myself I'd never be that guy."

"You didn't choose to be that guy," protested Piper. "There is something messed up about being six years older than your twelve year old son. Some of his friends are almost our age. All that time lost frozen as a statue and the truth was bitter. There was no artifact to hide a demigod from monsters. It was all a trap."

"He did well in the Gauntlet," spoke Leo trying to cheer everyone up.

"Are you coming to Portugal with us?" Jason asked Leo.

"Hey," interrupted Piper. "It's Robin's quest not yours," she teased Jason.

"He will probably need you all," interrupted Wonder Woman. "There are five apple seeds, five lines of prophecy and five demigods already linked into this. It is unlikely to be a co-incidence."

"What about his Superhero team?" asked Piper.

"Aqualad, Kid Flash, Artemis, Superboy and Miss Martian; there are five of them if Robin is numbered as a demigod." replied Wonder Woman.

"Symmetry isn't a good sign to ignore," replied Annabeth. "Ten is a simply enormous team."

"This involves the world of man in a way you are unaccustomed to. Don't underestimate man's ability to sew destruction and chaos. It is not always solely deities and demigods courting the end of days," Diana advised. "I have to go but I will be watching."

"What's the deadline on all of this?" asked Jason. "There is usually a deadline. I don't like not knowing how much time until this all blows up and it does feel like there is very little information to go on this time."

"Were you close to your uncle and his wife?" asked Annabeth.

"John and Mary Grayson?" asked Piper.

Annabeth nodded.

"They were amazing people. We were coming through Europe. We were on the run and I'd never met them before but we imposed ourselves upon them because we were in a tight spot and needed help," explained Jason.

"I never thought I'd end up hiding out in a circus," confessed Piper. "There was a continuous battle with monsters every time the circus stopped for any length of time. It was terrifying. It was physically impossible to run once I got to about seven months pregnant. I was useless for anything but light duty work. I worked with the fortune teller while Jason helped with the trapeze. I think Jupiter's children were meant to be in the air. Jason was a natural. They were so welcoming even after there were people hurt by the monsters."

"The whole circus had a tight knit family feel," recalled Jason.

"I went into labour on the circus train somewhere between Budapest and Hungary. Jason and his uncle John both go wandering off to find the vet because he's the closest thing to a doctor the circus has. They're all smiles and chumminess. I can't believe you missed the birth!"

"Well it took us three quarters of an hour to track down Edvard. He was in absolutely no hurry. He said babies usually take ten or twelve hours. We had a couple of drinks."

"You missed the birth!"

"You gave birth in less than two hours!"

"I'm in labour and you're tossing back Russian vodka with the old boys!"

"Everything happened so fast," protested Jason sheepishly. He tried to always be the responsible one. You loosen up a little and have one shot with the men, to toast the coming birth of your first child and twelve years later you're still in trouble for it.

"He was tiny, barely five pounds but he'd come early. My water broke and Mary calmly helped me undress like it was no big thing. She gets a soft towel to clean me up then she looks up with this silly smile and said, Piper love, your little bambino is eager. She reaches down and is cradling the top of a head. Two pushes later he was born. I don't honestly think anything phased Mary. She was always calm. He was blue, very bruised and nearly limp. He came out too fast and it took a while to get him breathing but Mary, so calm, just kept rubbing him and patting him encouraging him in a soft mix of Romani and English."

Jason looked upset when Piper detailed the scary moments after birth. He'd wanted to be there but Richard or rather Robin was a strong and clever 12 year old now. He was far from the helpless tiny thing he'd been.

"How old was he when you left?" asked Leo a expression of sympathy shadowing his face.

"Three weeks old. The circus had been attacked again and the strong man Samson was badly hurt. We didn't think we could wait anymore. We left to find the artifact to hide him. I wasn't taking a newborn into the monster's den. In the meantime, Zitka this very gentle circus elephant, helped mask his scent. She'd take him, blanket and all and rock him in her trunk for hours a day. I'm sure she thought he was a strange looking little elephant."

It was a strange departure from the norm travelling by living space ship. The bio ship made room for the extra passengers. Leo when he finally got to see the ship uncloaked and really admire it close up got down on his hands and knees talking to the ship and examining it in detail cooing to her.

"Oh you are simply beautiful. You're a mix of bio-engineering and mechanical tech aren't you? Someone put a lot of love into you." He stroked the floor of the ship admiringly. It felt like metal but it could change shape. Several different material components merged seamlessly. "How do you make the chairs adjust to different body shapes?" He examined the chairs and restraint systems. "Would you look at this craftsmanship. She's detecting and adjusting to the new passenger requirements. Ooh she is gorgeous."

M'gann smiled. The ship was pleased. She was enjoying being appreciated.

Oddly enough, Leo seemed to understand that, seemed to understand her. The Bio ship had never met a son of Hephaestus before. The Young Justice team and the Olympian Heroes looked at Leo a little oddly. The ship had made him a distinctly Leo chair with readouts and displays and a sculpted dragon's head across the back of the chair. "Thanks Beautiful. You are quite the artist."

M'gann giggled.

Robin laughed, "He's like Batman with a new Batmobile without all the glaring and grouching of, 'Don't touch the paint job!', 'Did I say you could touch the buttons?', 'You can drive it when hell freezes over!'," Rob whispered to Kid Flash snickering.

Superboy who'd overheard smirked.

"Have you ever gotten to drive the Batmobile?" asked Kid Flash in a whisper.

"Hell no. To be honest though, I can't reach the pedals."

Kid Flash doubled over with snorting laughter, much to Robin's annoyance.

Superboy laughed too, receiving an angry glare from the Boy Wonder and an eye roll from Kid Flash because honestly Superboy just couldn't stop eavesdropping. Superboy figured anyone who stood right next to a Kryptonian and whispered was just asking for it, "You're just so loud. ...and short!"

Aqualad cleared his throat, "The whispering is inappropriate."

"We're not making fun of them," protested Kid Flash gesturing to the Olympians. "We're making fun of Rob." Kid Flash grinned at Aqualad in a cheesy fashion.

"Enough of the us and them," corrected Aqualad.

"Stop glaring birdbrain. You set yourself up for that one," Kid Flash teased Rob affectionately and they sat next to each other. "Your parents are tall enough. How come you're a shrimp?"

It was going to be a long flight, thought Aqualad.

Annabeth cleared her throat. "I don't know who has talked to whom about this but for most Olympian monsters or entities if you prefer; they don't exactly die and anything less than lethal force will do next to nothing. Lethal force should turn them to dust and cause them to take many years to reform rather than moments."

Aqualad nodded. Wonder Woman had spoken to them at length on this issue. The no kill rule that was a fundamental part of the Justice League would be stretched thin. It would take caution to tell the monsters from the mundane as there was a co-operative suspected between monstrous villains and mundane ones.

Annabeth continued her briefing, "Many are poisonous or possess special abilities. That should be nothing new given the nature of the villains you've fought. Perception is a problem. Most non-Olympians cannot see a monster's true form. Sometimes the monsters can, through an exercise of will, cause it to seem as if they are innocent victims causing bystanders to villainize heroes..."

The Young Justice team settled in listening to what sounded to them much like a mission briefing. Most of the information was review but it was all important. Annabeth believed knowledge was power. They needed contingency plans and preparation.

"Robin dude! Wake up!" hissed Kid Flash.

Robin blinked awake disoriented. Annabeth had, well she'd just given off that comforting Batman vibe and he hadn't really slept since they'd stopped dousing him with Ambrosia. He'd been too stressed, freaked out, whatever. He rubbed his face wearily. The team would be looking to him to recognize monsters. They were depending on the link to identify discrepancies between his perception and the team's. That was the plan wasn't it? Five more minutes Alfred, thought Robin fighting for alert wakefulness.

Annabeth gave Robin a look of scrutiny. "This is review. Sleep is good." Annabeth looked from Robin to Piper then gave the ghost of a smile. "..sorry."

Is she apologizing for smiling, wondered Robin confused?

"Sorry, but the trials of Olympus shatter families. A lot of us are forced to abandon loved ones to draw monsters away from them. Thalia, your aunt on your father's side, ran away from home at your age. She found me hiding in the streets at seven. She died protecting me before I reached the safety of the camp. Zeus took mercy on her and gave her new life. You're her spitting image. She was my best friend. She's with Artemis the Huntress now." Annabeth unfolded an old photograph of Thalia and passed it to Robin.

He looked at it curiously. Oh he thought, she was apologizing for staring. He scrubbed at his face to wake up.

"Did you know you had a tree for an Aunt for years? Actually she was a tree before you were born but still," offered Leo.

Robin waited for the punch line.

"Zeus turned her into a guardian tree that created a protective barrier sheltering all the half blood children in camp," explained Annabeth.

So I should hug a tree, thought Robin confused and still half asleep? The team who were linked chuckled, though Robin was just confused and not trying to make a joke. His parents has really been frozen as statues for twelve years? It was gradually becoming more real. They looked so young.

"The golden fleece returned her humanity," spoke Annabeth softly.

"Annabeth was very instrumental in Thalia's revival," spoke Piper.

"Does Aunt Thalia know about me?" asked Robin. "Why wasn't she..." Robin had always been taught that family was there for each other. His mom and dad, well John and Mary Grayson taught him that. Batman's whole crusade had a lot to do with making sure no more families had to be shattered. Why didn't Aunt Thalia help her brother or know she had a nephew?

"The service of Artemis is all consuming and Thalia is Artemis's lieutenant. They take the, 'away from the world of man' thing more seriously than even the Amazons," spoke Jason.

"She didn't know about you," added Annabeth. "And in her own way she joined the Hunters of Artemis to escape prophecy. It had to do with Zeus and Chronos. She didn't want to bring Chronos back to life and she didn't want Zeus murdering her or her brother. One of the reasons she joined the Hunters of Artemis was to stop a really nasty sequence of events from happening but no one can dedicate themselves to a Goddess lightly. She isn't free to come and go. Artemis..."

"Chronos is bad news," Piper explained. "End of the world bad news."

Robin yawned, "So Aunt Thalia is like a cloistered nun of Artemis, kinda."

"Go back to sleep moron," insisted Artemis fondly. "The dark circles under your eyes have dark circles."

Rob's five more minutes were really rather short. The entire bio ship lurched to the side.

"What's going on?" demanded Aqualad.

"A flock of birds?" replied Miss Martian confused.

"At the speed we're going?" protested Kid Flash.

"Hey Beautiful? Can you create a see through section in your hull, so that the images we're seeing aren't being filtered through your perception?" Leo called to the ship, who obligingly opened up a view port with a transparent panel rather than a video screen.

"How'd you?" Miss Martian started to protest.

"Harpies!" called out Jason.

"Ehh..." Robin couldn't figure out how to explain what he was seeing. He just focused on projecting his view. "Ugly crone like giant bird vulture ladies throwing flaming explosive poo?"

"They look like an innocent flock of sea birds but..." Artemis was getting her bow out and going kind of cross eyed trying to look through Robin's eyes at the same time as seeing something completely different.

".. but that makes no sense what so ever at Bio ship speeds," finished Aqualad.

The Bio ship opened a rear hatch and Superboy who preferred not to overthink things, jumped onto one of the really big birds. Jason followed with a heavy duty sword and a battle roar.

"Take her low Miss M," suggested Robin.

"I'm heading out there," replied Miss Martian even as the Bio ship flew lower until it was almost skimming the water. _She's too busy flirting like a school girl with Leo to listen at the moment, thought Miss Martian through the link with a blush._

Leo had it under control. He was calling out encouragement to the ship, his hands gesturing in the directions the ship was swerving and swooping.

Aqualad too, engaged the harpies, his water bearers directed sweeps of water into the flock.

Annabeth reminded Robin that his team was depending on his view point and to stay back and observe.

"The Birdarang!" encouraged Leo. "It'll self return. Depend on it!"

Piper was scanning the horizon to be sure this was the limit of the trouble.

Artemis tried firing from the ship but the Myst obscuring the true shape of the birds made her shots ineffective. "Rob! I'm going to be firing right behind you using your point of view!"

Jason was doing fine with wind and sword. Wisps of golden dust followed him. The team, though they'd been told nothing but a kill shot would do, seemed to need to see it to believe it. They'd disable a harpie and in minutes it would be back in the group.

The ship was getting battered. Aqualad was shortly occupied trying to extinguish patches of fire on the Bio ship.

"We're getting hammered!" Robin called out. The tiny birdarang did damage, but not much.

"They have to finish them off!" yelled Annabeth. These heroes just didn't understand. She'd done the research on Batman and Robin. How could she make Robin understand? If he understood, his team mates would follow his lead. "You have to finish them off! Look at Jason and the gold dust. Think of it as sending the bad guy back to Arkham. They return to Tartarus. Please Robin you have to understand."


End file.
